Stop EPAs campaign seek concerns of women

The concerns and interests of African women seem to have been muted in the ongoing civil society campaigns and advocacy on the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).

In Accra, a three-day meeting was held to bring to the fore the “Voices and Concerns of Women in the Stop EPAs Campaign.”

It was organised by the Third World Network – Africa, (TWN). The EU says (EPAs) are meant to be comprehensive free trade agreements aimed at development and regional integration.

However, the EPAs have not gone down well with some ACP countries including Ghana. Civil society organizations and some economic analysts have reckoned that it has been difficult to estimate the costs and benefits of EPAs for developing countries.

They are afraid that the economy will lose more than gain, since unbriddled trade liberalization requires substantial adjustments to existing economic structures.

Kathleen A. Boohene, Gender Programme Officer, TWN-Africa noted that the position of women deserve special attention because trade policy is not gender neutral, while their purported benefits evade women.

In her opinion, it is not enough to assume that women will benefit from opportunities engendered by trade liberalization.

“With respect to EPAs negotiations, poor women’s voices are not heard in decision-making processes and negotiating structures that are largely male-dominated and closed to public debate. There has to be a conscious decision by government to mediate and influence the outcome of the market mechanism to ensure who benefits from trade and how the overall benefits of trade are shared equitably to all sections of the population.”

The European Union, (EU) and the African Caribbean and Pacific Group, (ACP) adopted the Cotonou Agreement, which is a framework of trade, aid and political cooperation treaty in 2000.

This replaced the previous Lome Convention with the objective of facilitating the economic and political integration of the ACP countries into a liberalized world market over the next twenty years.

Under the Cotonou Agreement, the parties agreed to negotiate a separate set of individual bilateral treaties between the EU and ACP countries. Those individual arrangements dubbed, “Economic Partnership Agreements,” (EPAs) are meant to be comprehensive free trade agreements aimed at development and regional integration.

In September 2002, negotiations on the EPAs began and were supposed to be completed by December 31, 2007.
By then, a World Trade Organisation, (WTO) waiver on the non-compatibility of the EU’s preferential trade relations with ACP countries would expire.

Trade relations between the EU and ACP have up to now been based on non-reciprocity. With the EPAs, the EU is demanding full trade liberalization and duty free access into ACP countries’ markets for European goods and services.

In effect, ACP countries will be expected to allow European goods and services unregulated access to their markets by reducing and eventually completely remove tariffs on a large number of goods and services. CSOs and analysts argue that will not augur well for ACP countries.

According to Mr. Tetteh Hormeku of TWN, EPAs will affect individuals, families and communities through their impact on agricultural production, prices, employment, capital flows and social services among others.

These changes, he said would have different consequences for women and men on account of existing and systemic gender inequities. “Women form the majority in Small Scale Entrepreneurship but usually lack access to credits. Therefore the costs of liberalization for them will be exacerbated.”

He said that the current EPA structure is not compatible to fulfill the WTO requirement. Civil society and business groups have studied the implications and come out with vigorous campaigns to stop the signing of the EPAs.
As of mid October 2007, the process was in disarray. West Africa has said it would not be able to sign by the December 2007 deadline.