By some estimates as many as 2.8 billion people live on less than $2 a day. Some 800 million people including more than 150 million children are undernourished, with 1.1 billion lacking access to safe drinking water and 2.4 billion lacking improved sanitation.
Direct aid from rich nations has shown its flaws, prompting leaders of some poor countries to put greater emphasis correctly on trade.
But industrialised countries stifle economic progress in developing countries with trade barriers in the form of discriminatory tariffs and duties placed on goods entering the country, as well as subsidies and tax breaks favouring producers in developed countries.
The European Union is also guilty of agricultural trade barriers and protectionism. Overall, such interventions on the part of wealthy countries cost poor countries $100 billion a year in lost income, by World Bank estimates more than twice the amount they receive in developed-world aid each year.
If the rich nations are truly serious about helping poor nations, they’ll tear down these walls right now.
Source: Pete du Pont (National Center for Policy Analysis), Lessons Up Close for Summit in Africa, Washington Times, August
28, 2002.
For text http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20020828-32678190.htm
For more on Trade, Tariffs and Protectionism http://www.ncpa.org/iss/tra/
FMF Policy Bulletin\3 September 2002
