Context:
Next to its commitment to conclude the WTO Doha Round, India is actively engaged in negotiating bilateral trade agreements with several countries in the region as well as internationally. The launch of the negotiations on a comprehensive bilateral trade and investment agreement between the EU and India in 2007 is a case in point for such an ambitious North-South Free Trade Agreement.
Based on the neo-classical theory of a positive relationship between openness to international trade and growth, trade liberalisation is promoted as an engine of development and a solution to the current economic crisis. However, the immense poverty problem India is facing1 and the rising inequality, aggravated by the financial and economic crisis, the food and fuel crisis – interlinked crises which are partly originating in the deregulation and liberalisation policies of the last decades- are posing tremendous challenges on India. Given the thread that FTAs ‘considerably reduce or fully remove policy options and instruments available to a developing country to pursue its development objectives'2, an important question to be addressed is what kind of macro-economic and trade policies are needed that serve the interest of sustainable economic development, poverty eradication, gender equality and women's social and economic empowerment.
Based on a number of studies the workshop will critically review the current EU-India trade relations and its impact on (women’s) livelihoods, gender equality, social inclusion or exclusion and poverty. Due to women’s and men’s different access to and control of resources, decision-making and participation as well as gender roles and gender norms in society trade reform and liberalisation have a different impact on women and men. Gender hereby intersects with other social categories of exclusion such as race, age, religion or caste.
The meeting will unbundle linkages between trade, development and gender and offers the possibility to discuss with policy makers, representatives of international institutions and of (women’s) organisations different approaches to shape trade policy between India and the EU in such a way that they respond to sustainable development, gender and social justice.
Objective of the workshop:
- Create a space to interact and dialogue with policy makers
- Enhance understanding of impacts of free trade policies on specific sectors
- Highlight the importance of gender in the trade discourse
Tentative Programme
Registration Form
1According to the 2007/2008 United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report, India ranks 128 on the Human Development Index (out of 177 countries), 35% of the Indian population lives on less than USD 1 a day and 80% on less than USD 2 a day. India ranks 62nd on the human poverty index for developing countries among 108 developing countries for which the index has been calculated.
2UNCTAD(2007) “trade and development report 2007, page 63
|
