OneWorld.net (U.S.)

Brown’s MDG summit: an empty gesture? Today, (Tuesday 6 May), the World Development Movement warned that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) summit is in danger of becoming an empty gesture for the world’s poor and a public relations stunt for big companies. The campaigners have launched an alternative plan of action for businesses and challenge Gordon Brown and the companies involved to support it. Peter Hardstaff, Head of Policy at the World Development Movement said: “Companies, of course, have an absolutely critical role to play in achieving the MDGs but there is a real danger that this summit is simply a public relations exercise, which will deliver little of substance to tackle the root causes of poverty. “Far more important than announcing yet another short-term, high profile scheme would be to stop to the routine, intensive pressure exerted on poor countries by corporate lobbyists. It is sheer hypocrisy for companies to claim they want to help the poor while at the same time lobbying for tax breaks, low labour standards and weak environmental protection in the developing world. “We challenge Gordon Brown and all the major companies involved in this summit to support our alternative plan that really would deliver significant and lasting change in the developing world and would help to achieve the MDGs.” The World Development Movement’s plan includes a range of recommendations calling on companies to curtail their lobbying activities that lead to weak social, economic and environmental regulation, for example, lobbying for increased market access, strict enforcement of intellectual property rights, privatisation and tax loopholes. The campaigners point to the damaging, long-term effects on the poor of these activities. A recent example can be seen where the American and European Chambers of Commerce, on behalf of several of the high profile companies included in this summit, successfully lobbied to weaken proposed legislation to improve labour rights in China. The campaigners argue that they should instead support policies such as increased lobbying transparency, minimum wages, labour rights, reducing pollution and clamping down on tax havens. This would be a much greater contribution to achieving the MDGs. Ends For more information, interviews or comment, please contact Kate Blagojevic on 07711 875 345. Notes The meeting in London, an initiative of Gordon Brown, is designed to promote the “Call to Action on the Millennium Development Goals” that was launched in January 2008. This “call to action”, signed by some of the world’s largest corporations, such as Microsoft, General Electric and Unilever, asks companies “to implement concrete initiatives that apply their core business, skills, and expertise in a transformative and scalable manner that will enhance growth and wealth creation to help meet the MDGs.” The World Development Movement’s 10 point plan: 1. Stop lobbying the EU, US, Japan and other rich countries to prise open markets in developing countries; recognise that that all our interests will be better served in the long run by ensuring developing countries can use the same trade policy tools industrialised countries used to get rich. 2. Stop demanding strict enforcement of intellectual property rights in developing countries; recognise that strict patent laws may not be appropriate for all countries in all circumstances. 3. Support radical government action, starting in rich countries, to tackle dangerous climate change; recognise that left unchecked, climate change will roll-back progress that is made towards the MDGs. 4. Support the creation of legally binding international rules to regulate multinational companies in order to minimise the adverse social and environmental impacts of their operations; recognise that voluntary initiatives have failed to deliver and binding rules offer a level playing field for all companies. 5. Stop capitalising on legal loopholes that enable companies to avoid paying taxes in both developed and developing countries; recognise that corporate philanthropy to the poor is simply hypocrisy if the company is avoiding paying what is due. 6. Support government measures to clamp down on tax havens and tax avoidance by multinational companies and the super rich; recognise that healthy tax income is a critical part of good government in developing and developed countries alike, and good government is in all our interests. 7. Stop lobbying for privatisation and deregulation; recognise that ‘free market globalisation’ is contributing to increasing inequality and instability which is only likely to serve the long term interests of arms manufacturers. 8. Support tighter regulation of financial markets by governments wishing to place controls on the movement of money in order to curb potentially damaging speculative financial flows that have been strongly linked with previous financial crises. 9. Support the creation and implementation of strong labour rights and minimum wages in developing countries; recognise that many major social advances that we now take for granted are the result of these rights. 10. Support much greater transparency in the activities of lobbyists (both companies and NGOs); recognise that behind-the-scenes lobbyists have an increasingly influential role in policy-making and the public has a right to know who is saying what to who on whose behalf.