Below is the executive summary of the report, highlighting particular outcomes and future recommendations that were a result of the roundtable discussions. Check back soon for the full report.
To see photos of this roundtable please visit our Flickr gallery (bottom, right).
Executive Summary
The focus of development policy has moved from aid to a concentration on capacity building and better integration of less developed countries into regional markets and the global trading system, our Development Policy Forum heard on 17 May.
But African farmers are losing out from their participation in the market, warned Mamadou Cissokho, President of the Network of West African Farmer and Producer Organisations. “Our problem is not access to markets. We are in the markets and we are losing. I cannot support development through trade.”
At the same time, the Doha process is at an impasse because of European and American demands, said Judith Sargentini MEP, Vice Chair of the European Parliament Delegation for relations with South Africa. “European trade initiatives are mainly about ensuring markets for European products,” she said.
The EU’s forthcoming reform of the Common Agricultural Policy is an opportunity to link the CAP more closely to development and further decouple subsidies from production, the roundtable heard.
However, Nikiforos Sivenas, Director for International Affairs and Multilateral Negotiations at the European Commission Directorate General for Agriculture stated that there is no contradiction between the CAP and development policy.
The CAP is one response to price volatility, “which destroys agricultural economies,” said Jacques Carles, Executive Vice-President of the Movement for a World Agricultural Organisation (Momagri), but there should also be specific anti-crisis measures to combat volatility, he added, including restrictions on market speculators.
