Civil society representatives were concerned about the path of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which concluded its eleventh ministerial sessions in Sao Paulo last month. The civil society wanted UNCTAD to take proactive steps to protect the interests of developing countries in the face of onslaught of WTO and TNCs.

''We were expecting an UNCTAD that would show more leadership,'' but during this conference the most important outcomes came from the parallel events involving other institutions, said Yara Pietricovsky, coordinator of the Brazilian Network for the Integration of Peoples and one of the organisers of the UNCTAD Civil Society Forum.

Fair Trade at UNCTAD XI The Fair Trade movement organized two public events: Fair Trade symposium: aimed at raising awareness and informing about Fair Trade itself and about its contribution to sustainable development. About 150 participants from a ,wide range of organisations, both civil society, official delegates from UNCTAD member countries attended it. The morning session focussed on Fair Trade and its contribution to sustainable development while the second and third panels in the afternoon were more directed to the issues discussed at the UNCTAD XI conference (national policy space, food security, focus on small producers and the commodity crisis). Fair Trade Strategy Meeting: The aim of this meeting was to exchange ideas and information and to find ways of collaboration. Around 50 participants from different parts of the world attended the Strategy sessions. This would lead to formation of working groups one wuld look at Domestic and South-South Fair Trade and the other matters related to Advocacy , Promotion labeling etc. A Fair Trade declaration was signed by about 100 organisations.

There were numerous meetings during the week-long UNCTAD XI that were related to World Trade Organisation negotiations and to the trade accord being hammered out between the European Union and Mercosur (Southern Common Market), which comprises Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Besides meeting of P 5 there were other meeting like G20 and LDC meetings.

What came out very prominently was that the most vulnerable countries need to be given specific attention in all global forums because they are not receiving the official development assistance (ODA) that wealthy countries promised and are finding it difficult to take advantage of the expansion of international trade. The ODA goal for the 50 poorest countries is 0.2 percent of gross domestic product of the rich countries, but today reaches just 0.11 percent GDP. The LDCs are home to 736 million people -- more than 11 percent of the global population -- but their participation in global trade is just 0.4 percent. . Most are rely on one single commodity, like cotton, and left without alternatives when international prices plummet.

Cotton is among the main exports of at least 20 of the LDCs, most of which are in Africa. As a result of the subsidies the United States grants its cotton growers, international prices for this commodity stand at 25 percent below what experts estimate they should be. In Benin, Burkina Faso and Mali, some 11 million people depend on income from cotton, and suffer the direct effects of U.S. cotton subsidies, which were recently condemned by the World Trade Organisation in a complaint filed by Brazil.

As such, in addition to a price recovery, these countries need the international community to establish a ''consistent policy for stabilising those prices,'' said Idris Waziri, trade minister for Nigeria, which is also a ''victim'' of the U.S. cotton subsidies, although it is not on the list of LDCs. Trade liberalisation amongst other developing countries is essential for the LDCs, because more than half of their international exchange occurs within the developing world, while 42 percent is with industrialised
countries.

The mechanisms for boosting South-South trade in discussion at UNCTAD XI, like the Global System of Trade Preferences (GSTP), a scheme exclusive to developing countries, are a priority for the group. But they also need measures to help them gain greater and better access to the markets of the
industrialised North, where the bulk of world trade is concentrated.

While UNCTAD XI declaration does not adequately respond to the matter of deeply impoverished peasant farmers, or the regulation of transnational corporations, NGOs were pleased with the decision to reactivate the Global System of Trade Preferences (GSTP) aimed specifically at boosting trade within the developing South.

Other positive points in the final document and in the UNCTAD XI resolutions were the defence of ''spaces for national policies'' of developing countries, of family farming and of special treatment for the least-developed countries, the decision to create a task force to study mechanisms for recuperating and stabilising commodity prices and a proposal to set up a fund that would help countries that rely on exports of just one or two commodities to diversify. But in the words of outgoing Secretary General of UNCTAD Rubens Ricupero "the success of that initiative depends on ''countries that have money''.

A big concern of the NGOs and social movements participating in the Civil Society Forum, which was linked to UNCTAD, was the question: Who will succeed Ricupero at the helm? Activists want someone who will strengthen the U.N. body, based on the original mandate to promote development of poor countries, intensify South-South cooperation, and create a research department with a capacity similar to other multilateral institutions, like the WTO, International Monetary Fund and World Bank. While addressing the civil society gathering U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan promised to seek a new UNCTAD leader who would promote those aspirations, and even asked the Civil Society Forum to suggest names.