Mobilizing the stars
Rock star Bono's African development NGO, DATA , views trade as a potentially valuable development tool, and is lobbying for a productive Doha Round.
Last week, the Washington Post carried a story by Sebastian Mallaby on DATA-sponsored briefings to prepare Brad Pitt for a Doha advocacy role: Trade and Aid: Stars Are Aligned (Nov 21):
In the run-up to the Group of Eight summit in Scotland last summer, Pitt got Africa onto Diane Sawyer's "Primetime Live" for a full hour by offering himself up for an interview. His effort reinforced those of the rock stars who staged the "Live 8" concerts just before the summit, and it embarrassed the rich world into promising more aid. The hope is to repeat that trick on behalf of the Doha round of trade talks, which currently are stuck. France leads a pack of rich nations that refuse to cut the farm protectionism that harms poor nations.
Trade could use this sort of backing. Business groups that once lobbied energetically for freer trade have lost some of their passion, because past trade deals have already removed many of the barriers that bugged them. So now Pitt and his allies must ride to the rescue. DATA, the activist outfit that sponsored Pitt's tutorials, has convinced development groups that traditionally ignored trade that they should sign on to a pro-Doha platform. American religious leaders, who have long campaigned for Third World debt relief, are planning to use a meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice next week to lobby for trade liberalization. Rice's visitors will speak for some 80 million Americans, and Brad Pitt alone has almost as many fans. Sect appeal plus sex appeal becomes the new trade lobby.
Searching the globe for support
The Wall Street Journal also carried a story last week, by Gregg Hitt: "Wanted: Rocker-Activist's support." ( Nov 23).
The title refers to administration efforts to get support from Bono. But the title is misleading, Bono only makes a fleeting appearance, the story really deals with administration efforts to round up support in other nations, especially Africa.
The American outreach includes specific measures, such as a proposal to streamline U.S. and EU health and safety regulations on food imports and new aid grants to African countries making economic reforms.
But U.S. efforts to win over Africa - and raise pressure on Europe - are limited by the Bush administration's own intransigence, including on calls by cotton-producing African nations to end all subsidies to U.S. cotton growers.
The U.S. push to increase world-wide pressure on Europe was on display last week at a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders in South Korea, where officials from many nations demanded bolder farm action from Geneva. Before the summit, Mr. Portman traveled to India and China, where he urged officials to help break the WTO logjam.
Mr. Portman also made a point of stopping in West Africa, along with Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, for two days. "We've definitely been looking for ways to orient programs in Africa," said an administration official involved in the latest round of economic diplomacy. "We're trying to stretch a little."
The trip took the two U.S. cabinet secretaries to Burkina Faso for meetings with trade officials from five African cotton-producing nations, which emerged as an important bloc in Cancun. Massrs. Portman and Johanns said the proposed American trade concessions would eventually address African concerns about U.S. subsidies. In the meantime, they handed out $7 million to improve the efficiency of cotton producers in West Africa and issued a statement noting Burkino Faso was in line for "hundreds of millions of grant dollars" after joining Benin, Mali, and Senegal as eligible for assistance from the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation, which steers development aid.Separately, Josette Shiner, the Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs, has been meeting regularly in Washington with antipoverty groups, promoting the U.S. agenda but also exploring ways to steer more benefits to Africa. Since Cancun, U.S. officials have recognized the influence of NGOs in shaping perceptions of trade talks and are recruiting their ideas and support in the buildup to Hong Kong...
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