G33 slams “flawed” World Bank paper on special products

The Group of 33 in the WTO has complained to World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz about a paper on Special Products (SPs) produced by the Bank which the Group says contains a serious misrepresentation of the purpose and effects of SPs.

The G33, in a letter to Wolfowitz, attacked the World Bank paper's conclusion that the SP proposal was aimed at raising the prices of foods produced by subsistence farmers and that this could have disastrous consequences for poverty.

Diplomats of several G33 members, contacted in Geneva, expressed anger at the wrong assumptions and conclusions of the paper, which they said exposed the lack of knowledge of the authors about the G33 proposals on SPs and also about the WTO's Doha negotiations.

They were particularly outraged that the paper has been published at a crucial time in the Doha negotiations, during which the United States and a few other WTO members have tried to shift the blame for the impasse in the talks onto the G33 for allegedly blocking market access for farm products from the US and other countries.

Senior diplomats from several G33 members are concerned that the Bank's paper could be used as ammunition by the US to shoot down the G33 proposal. Some believe that the Bank's publication of the paper at this moment is an intervention aimed at weakening the position of the G33 while strengthening the hand of the US and others opposed to the G33 proposals on SPs.

"The Bank should not try to interfere in this misleading and manipulative way in the WTO negotiations," said the Ambassador of a G33 country. "It is especially objectionable that the paper tries to show that our proposal on special products, which is aimed at protecting the poor, will be harmful to the poor."

The G33 is a grouping of 46 developing countries that operates in the WTO's agriculture negotiations and which has championed the concepts and instruments of SPs and special safeguard mechanism (SSM) to defend the interests of their small farmers. The group includes Indonesia (the coordinator), India, China, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Korea, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Benin, Senegal, Mauritius, Uganda, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, and several other African, Caribbean and Central American countries.

A letter on behalf of the G33 members was sent earlier this month by the G33's coordinator, Indonesia's Ambassador to the WTO, Gusmardi Bustami, to the World Bank President expressing their "urgent and serious concerns" about the World Bank Paper on 'Implications of Agricultural Special Products for Poverty in Low-Income Countries', authored by Maros Ivanic and Will Martin.

Will Martin is a Lead Economist in the Development Research Group of the World Bank, while Maros Ivanic was with the Bank when the paper was written. The paper was produced by the Bank's Trade Research Team and published at the World Bank's website.

"The G33 believes the paper contains a serious misrepresentation as regard the purpose and impact of the Special Products (SPs) instrument contemplated in the WTO's July 2004 Framework and the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration," said the letter.

According to Ambassador Gusmardi, the paper is premised on a central assumption, which is without authority and completely false, i.e. "that proposals for special products seek to achieve the goals of food