Dear forum, The WTO would improve its standing and increase its credibility if it presented a more balanced view of the effects of trade liberalisation on the poor. The WTO too often gives the impression that it is barely aware of, or even trying to hide, the many studies - from both official and NGO sources - which show the damaging impact of trade liberalisation on the poor. For compilations of studies, see for example: Trade and hunger - an overview of case studies on the impact of trade liberalisation on food security, Forum Syd,
http://www.forumsyd.se/globala.htm The impact of trade liberalisation on food security in the South, Literature review, CIDSE,
http://www.cidse.org Secondly, when the WTO speaks of benefits for the poor from trade, it would do well to disaggregate more. The WTO should estimate how much of the benefit from additional trade from liberalisation will accrue to the traders, transnational corporations for example, and how much to the poor. Unless the WTO shows more awareness that it is companies not the poor who trade on world markets, it is unconvincing in its attempts to claim that the poor will gain. It gives the irmpression of not dealing with the real world. As an organisation that deals with trade, the WTO needs to say more about the activity of the traders. John Madeley, (writer author of:
A People's World: Alternatives to economic globalization.
Hungry for Trade: how the poor pay for free trade.
Big Business, Poor Peoples: the impact of transnational corporations on the world's poor. | 
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