REPA Booklet - Stop Epa

“Studies ‘confirm
the absence of
women in trade
and investment
policy and
decision making,
as well as the
fact that gender
considerations
and women’s
issues are
considered by
most policy
makers as
irrelevant to
trade and
investment
processes.”
(Aprodev, 2003)
‘stakeholders’ from government departments, ‘non-state actors’ including women’s groups, church groups,
private sector, trade unions and other organisations. Governments will choose who is invited, in consultation
with the three organisations. One stated goal of the training is to convince the participants – especially governments
- of the value of social impact assessments! Another is to brief them fully on multilateral trade negotiations, in
particular PICTA. Assuming that the governments decide to proceed (and it is not clear whether they would get
any funding to assist them), the first assessment won’t be done until 2006 at the earliest.
Would these social impact assessments offer anything useful for the EPA negotiations?
No, for three reasons:
1. the training is to assess the impacts after an agreement has been signed – not to examine the likely
social and human implications before a position is put on the negotiating table. Even the suggested case
study looks at the effect of having already closed a factory.
2. the social impact assessment will initially only apply to PICTA. The much more significant consequences
of a Pacific Economic Partnership Agreement and the flow-on effects from triggering PACER would not
be considered until the distance future - even though everyone accepts that they could have serious
social, economic, cultural, environmental and political consequences.
3. PICTA deals only with goods, so the social impact assessment training package is unlikely to cover
services, investment or other issues that arise under Cotonou, and could potentially come under
PACER.
Surely the Forum Secretariat is organising specific social impact studies of an EPA?
Not yet, despite repeated demands from NGOs. There is a proposal to set up a Consultative Group within the
Regional Negotiating Machinery as part of the Outreach Programme. It would work on issues such as the social
dimensions of EPAs, impact on specific economic sectors, environment, gender, etc, in collaboration with
regional networks of ‘non-State actors’. But there is no sign of it. Worse, the sources of expertise that the
Secretariat suggests for understanding sustainable impact assessments and ‘trade and poverty’ are the IMF
and World Bank.
Do national governments see the social impacts as an issue?
Fiji trade officials say they don’t have the resources to conduct these studies themselves and it is not their role.
While the government is trying to develop capacities in other ministries, including Women’s Affairs, but that won’t
happen in time for the Economic Partnership Agreement. The best they can do is to adapt the Forum Secretariat’s
training package to Fiji.
Why can’t governments commission their own people to do these studies?
The Vanuatu government’s negotiating strategy acknowledges how little research has been done on social
impacts and none assessing the social meaning of an Economic Partnership Agreement. Such studies are
outside the terms of reference and role of Department of Trade, but it suggests it could help to coordinate a social
impact study conducted by a NGO, the Kaljoral Senta and/or the trade union. That study might include:
- examination of the likely social impact of tariff reductions on prices of staple products such as rice, tinned
fish and kerosene;
- an examination of the tax structure and how possible changes resulting from trade liberalisation would
affect low-income groups, especially if tariff cuts accelerate the need for income tax and lead to a more
progressive tax regime;
- an assessment of the impact on employment;
- an analysis of what would happen socially if the service sectors identified by the government were
liberalised;
- social impact of the movement of seasonable agricultural workers overseas, including the possible
impact of remittances on community consumption levels; whether the temporary movement of people
overseas would erode cultural values; the effect of on-the-job training received abroad; and potential
for any brain drain.
A People’s Guide To The Pacific’s Economic Partnership Agreement 69