We are a group of local people who are concerned about the effect that the current rules governing international trade are having on poor countries. We have come together to improve our understanding of this complex subject and to work out what we, as ordinary people, can do about it.
On 16th July we met with the Secretary of State for International Development, Douglas Alexander.Click here for more details.
We have developed a link with a group in Ghana.
Refer back to minutes of past campaign meetings or have a look at some of the successful events we have been involved with over the last few years.
What can I do?
The rules of international trade are stacked in favour of the most powerful countries and their businesses. To reduce poverty and protect the environment we need trade justice.
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The Trade Justice Movement is calling for:
- An end to conditions attached to loans and aid that override poor countries ability to choose trade policies that are best for them
- An end to subsidies that lead to the dumping of cheap goods on poor countries. These imports flood local markets in poor countries and destroy jobs and livelihoods
- Regulation of international companies to ensure they meet environmental and social standards.
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Do you think it's right
that a poor country like Tanzania is forced to privatise its utilities, with the result that its water supply is now owned and run by a UK multinational? Particularly when this multinational is now supplying water that many people can't afford! The poorest people of Tanzania are still having to use water from shallow local wells, which is often dirty and makes them sick.
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Do you think it's right
that around half of the European Union's annual budget is spent on the Common Agricultural Policy, producing more food than we need, surpluses of things like sugar, for example, which then drive down world prices? Or that this the destroys the livelihoods of farmers in poor countries? Or that the EU then dumps its surpluses on those countries?
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Do you think it's right
that poor countries shoudl sometimes be forced as a condition of getting aid money from rich countries to cut government spending on health, edutcation and subsidies for poor farmers (yes, actually forced to cut them!)?
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© Make Poverty History 2005 Penguin Books
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