Echoes in the press

After many years of women’s, union and human rights movements campaigning against bilateral and regional agreements known as “free trade agreements” or “trade and investment agreements”, the government of the United States of America has taken the opposite direction. President Donald Trump has imposed protective tariffs on steel and aluminum, prompting retaliatory action and sparking a “trade war” with u predictable consequences. Trump intends to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and to withdraw from the Pacific Agreement, formerly known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), now renamed as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) by the eleven countries that did sign it. However, these two additional adjectives in the name do not reflect a change in the essence of the agreement pushed by Barack Obama to oppose China’s advance in the region.

Despite the Czech Republic stagnating in the worldwide effort to bring about gender equality, the country’s government plans to cut funding for equality projects significantly in the coming years. That’s according to the Czech branch of the international NGO network, Social Watch.

For the first time the State government this year presented a Gender Budget Statement as part of the annual budget documents, quantifying the allocations that will benefit women during this fiscal.

The statement appears as the last chapter in the appendices to the Budget documents published by the Finance Department and tabled in the Assembly on March 15. The Budget speech by Finance Minister O. Panneerselvam did not mention it.

Así lo afirma el uruguayo Roberto Bissio, coordinador de la red Social Watch, quien tiene serios reparos sobre las alianzas público privadas como modelo de desarrollo en América Latina.

Morocco is in a hurry. At Ouarzazate on the edge of the Sahara desert what's billed as the world's biggest solar plant – the size of 200 football pitches – is coming into operation. 

On the outskirts of Rabat, the country's capital, the foundations of what its backers claim will be Africa's tallest building – to be built by a Chinese state-owned company – are being laid. 

Mega projects

CIVICUS speaks with Barbara Adams, senior policy analyst at the Global Policy Forum (GPF), on the problem of private finance within the UN development system, and the need for civil society action in response to these growing trends.

A non-binding declaration on Women and Trade signed by 118 countries was made public today during a press conference at the Hilton Hotel, where the 11th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is taking place.

The “Joint Declaration on Trade and Women's Economic Empowerment” states without offering evidence that “international trade and investment are engines of economic growth for both developing and developed countries, and that improving women's access to opportunities and removing barriers to their participation in national and international economies contributes to sustainable economic development”.

El activista y periodista noruego Petter Titland fue autorizado a regresar este domingo a Argentina, de donde fue deportado el viernes cuando llegó para la Conferencia ministerial de la Organización Mundial del Comercio (OMC), informó la Cancillería.

"Estoy en Brasil, he estado aquí dos días para esperar que la situación se solucione y ahora tenemos la solución. Estoy feliz por eso", declaró Titland 

Organizaciones no gubernamentales (ONG) de 30 países repudiaron hoy la deportación de un activista noruego y de una periodista británica-ecuatoriana que venían a participar o a cubrir la conferencia...

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