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North South relations

The future depends on the peoples’ struggle for social liberation

Wednesday 13 August 2014, by Anthony Legrand, Éric Toussaint

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Here is the second part of the long interview given by Eric Toussaint to Anthony Legrand on the 11th of July 2014. The interview addresses how an organization like the CADTM analyzes its activities in the context of North / South relationships. The first part is here

Do you think that (humanitarian) ‘moral emergency’ prevailed over exhaustive analysis within international solidarity? Action rather than reflection? Do you think that the NGOs are trying to address the causes of underdevelopment or rather dilute its effects?

It’s a little difficult for me to answer that since the CADTM’s strategic approach is based on the medium and long terms and therefore, by definition, we take a rather critical view of sudden outbursts of urgent humanitarian problem. On the other hand, of course there are emergency situations (e.g. earthquake in Haiti in January 2010, the floods in Pakistan in 2010, the typhoon in Philippines in 2013 or solidarity with the Palestinian people who are victims of the Israeli army’s aggression in the occupied territories during this summer 2014) that call for a large scale and urgent intervention. If organizations providing emergency aid can go beyond the urgency and look into the structural problems of a country and its people, that’s great. And sometimes that is the case. But basically, we criticize an approach which is strictly humanitarian and is an emergency approach: problems cannot be solved merely by putting bandages on horrible wounds. Therefore, we need an action which fundamentally and primarily aims at changing the structure in the medium and long terms.

The inadequacy of the NGOs and the development cooperation in addressing the structural issues is highly alarming.

In the North, Development Education involves serious work by many organizations trying to understand the global structures causing the problems. However, the biggest chunk of the funding of the Northern countries for international co-operation goes to NGOs, particularly to the development projects for the South which do not deal with structural problems. I do not mean just humanitarian assistance but also technical assistance (e.g. agriculture, health, education and other services) that has a revamped paternalist outlook and even a confirmed neo-liberal dimension (promoting commodification in general). Let’s take the well-known slogan of a North / South solidarity campaign which sounds nice at first, ’Do not give them fish, teach them to fish.’ As if the Southern people did not know how to fish! This is paternalism or evidence of a profound ignorance. This reflects what a section of the North thinks of the South: that the South must learn from the North. What ought to be done is that giant Northern fishing industries should be prevented from depleting fish stocks in the Southern lakes and seas, water pollution should be checked, facilities for food preservation and local marketing should be adequate, food sovereignty must be ensured... to enable millions of people, who have been traditionally depending on fishing, to live with dignity.

To expose the paternalistic, Eurocentric and arrogant stand of many Northern organizations, we can refer to the speech of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, delivered at Dakar on the 26th of July, 2007:

The tragedy of Africa is that the African has not fully entered into history. The African peasant, who for thousands of years have lived according to the seasons, whose life ideal was to be in harmony with nature, only knew the eternal renewal of time, [structured] by the endless repetition of the same gestures and the same words.

In this imaginary world where everything starts over and over again there is no place for human adventure or for the idea of progress.

In this universe where nature commands all, man escapes from the anguish of history that torments modern man, but he rests immobile in the centre of a static order where everything seems to have been written beforehand.

This man (the traditional African) never launched himself towards the future. The idea never came to him to get out of this repetition and to invent his own destiny.

The problem of Africa, and allow a friend of Africa to say it, is to be found here. Africa’s challenge is to enter to a greater extent into history. To take from it the energy, the force, the desire, the willingness to listen and to espouse its own history.” [1]

How arrogant, isn’t it?

The Eurocentric idea of Europe’s superiority is deep-rooted in the minds of many intellectuals, political leaders and journalists. This excerpt from a key work by an influential academic from the English-speaking world in the 1960s makes it clear: ’The new rulers of the world, whoever they may be, will inherit a position that has been built up by Europe, and by Europe alone. It is European techniques, European examples, European ideas which have shaken the non-European world out of its past – out of barbarism in Africa, out of a far older, slower, more majestic civilization in Asia; and the history of the world, for the last five centuries, in so far as it has significance, has been European history. I do not think that we need to make any apology if our study of history is European-centric’. [2] Major influential international organizations like OECD publish works that reflect the same attitude. I can cite the work of Angus Maddison (renowned economist of the OECD), who has tried to show that since the 16th century Western Europe does not owe its supremacy to the use of force. For this, he tried to demonstrate that Western Europe had caught up with most advanced Asian countries by the end of the 15th century before embarking on a military conquest of the world. Angus Maddison opposed others, such as Paul Bairoch [3], who expose the exploitative role of the European powers and challenge the capitalist system. Angus Maddison wrote: “If Bairoch is right, then much of the backwardness of the third world presumably has to be explained by colonial exploitation, and much less of Europe’s advantage can be due to scientific precocity, centuries of slow accumulation, and organizational and financial prosperity.’ [4] Angus Maddison could not accept that Europe successfully dominated much of the world largely by force. Thus, in his work published by the OECD, he works hard at demonstrating the superiority of Europe and capitalism from the 15th century onward. I teach a course on North / South relationships at the University of Liège and I dedicate part of it to these debates and to the criticism of Eurocentrism. [5]

I point out how the World Bank advocates a development that supports the widespread commercialization of goods and services (privatization and commodification of communal or collective land, water, health and education...) and the largest possible opening of Southern economies to foreign investment, goods and services. In my book on the World Bank I quoted one of its official reports, which says a lot about the said direction: “In his Principles of Political Economy (1848), John Stuart Mill mentioned the advantages of ‘foreign trade’. Over a century later, his observations are as pertinent as they were in 1848. Here is what Mill had to say about the indirect advantages of trade: A people may be in the quiescent, indolent, uncultivated state, with all their tastes either fully satisfied or entirely undeveloped, and they may fail to put forth the whole of their productive energies for want of any sufficient object of desire. The opening of a foreign trade, by making them acquainted with new objects, or tempting them by the easier acquisition of things which they had not previously thought attainable, sometimes works a sort of industrial revolution in a country whose resources were previously undeveloped for want of energy and ambition in the people: inducing those who were satisfied with scanty comforts and little work to work harder for the gratification of their new tastes, and even to save and accumulate capital, for the still more complete satisfaction of those tastes at a future time.” [6]

These different quotes demonstrate that the CADTM is not fighting against ghosts; it is attacking the ideas that are still currently deep-rooted in the thoughts and actions of powerful international organizations, important political leaders, intellectual establishments and mainstream media.

Do you think that ’political NGOs’ have been marginalized within the NGO sector? If so, why?

Yes, of course. Both the mainstream media and the government have clearly marginalized the NGOs (and other associations) having an emancipatory and critical political vision of the issues of North / South relationships. Funding agencies have a systematic policy of marginalizing this type of organizations; or steer them, under the pretext of improving their technical capacity, towards abandoning a critical overview of the system. It’s a constant struggle for the NGOs (and other associations) with a critical, holistic and political approach. It is a struggle to go against the trend of some NGOs who lose sight of the strategic perspective of challenging a number of structural phenomena. However, these issues do not easily invite funds or convince donors. Quite a lot of NGOs have the tendency to comply with methods that make it easier to get funding (e.g-Microcredit advocacy - CADTM is critical of it [7] - the fight against AIDS, the issue of climate change). The CADTM critiques the tendency of NGOs to succumb to a bandwagon effect when it comes to the manner in which the mass media declare what the most urgent global problems are and in which the Northern governments set up a hierarchy of priorities for granting access to their funds. The CADTM, which works on the issue of Third World debt, has repeatedly confronted the viewpoint of donors that the debt is no longer a problem for the Third World and its advocacy is not required any more. We have also faced arguments such as ’you’re asking us for grants while saying that countries indebted to the North must stop paying back because the debt is illegitimate. Do you find this convincing enough for receiving funds?” Despite everything, we remain independent. Moreover, the CADTM’s budget, as compared to the budget of big humanitarian NGOs, is minute.

Some people, both in the North and the South, plead for putting a stop to international aid, accusing it of creating a dependent development in the developing countries. What do you think?

It depends on who these critics are (e.g extreme-right politicians who prefer to prioritize their countries or Southern voices that challenge the structures of public aid for development -PAD- as it functions). The CADTM’s stand is to stop talking about development finance. In international law, there is an obligation for development cooperation in the sense of arranging for remittances to (re)set the balance. This is the result of struggles over the past 50 years, especially in the work of the United Nations.

The UN Declaration on the Right to Development adopted in 1986 provides a solid basis for forming a positive approach towards human development. It is very little known, which is why I have some excerpts for you here:

Article 1

  • The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.
  • The human right to development also implies the full realization of the right of peoples to self-determination, which includes, subject to the relevant provisions of both International Covenants on Human Rights, the exercise of their inalienable right to full sovereignty over all their natural wealth and resources.

Article 2

1. The human person is the central subject of development and should be the active participant and beneficiary of the right to development.

(...)

Article 3

1. States have the primary responsibility for the creation of national and international conditions favourable to the realization of the right to development.

2. The realization of the right to development requires full respect for the principles of international law concerning friendly relations and co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

3. States have the duty to co-operate with each other in ensuring development and eliminating obstacles to development. States should realize their rights and fulfill their duties in such a manner as to promote a new international economic order based on sovereign equality, interdependence, mutual interest and co-operation among all States, as well as to encourage the observance and realization of human rights.

Article 4

  • States have the duty to take steps, individually and collectively, to formulate international development policies with a view to facilitating the full realization of the right to development.
  • Sustained action is required to promote more rapid development of developing countries. As a complement to the efforts of developing countries, effective international co-operation is essential in providing these countries with appropriate means and facilities to foster their comprehensive development.

Article 5

States shall take resolute steps to eliminate the massive and flagrant violations of the human rights of peoples and human beings affected by situations such as those resulting from apartheid, all forms of racism and racial discrimination, colonialism, foreign domination and occupation, aggression, foreign interference and threats against national sovereignty, national unity and territorial integrity, threats of war and refusal to recognize the fundamental right of peoples to self-determination.

Article 6

1. All States should co-operate with a view to promoting, encouraging and strengthening universal respect for and observance of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without any distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.

2. All human rights and fundamental freedoms are indivisible and interdependent; equal attention and urgent consideration should be given to the implementation, promotion and protection of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

3. States should take steps to eliminate obstacles to development resulting from failure to observe civil and political rights, as well as economic, social and cultural rights.

Article 7

All States should promote the establishment, maintenance and strengthening of international peace and security and, to that end, should do their utmost to achieve general and complete disarmament under effective international control, as well as to ensure that the resources released by effective disarmament measures are used for comprehensive development, in particular that of the developing countries.

Article 8

1. States should undertake, at the national level, all necessary measures for the realization of the right to development and shall ensure, inter alia, equality of opportunity for all in their access to basic resources, education, health services, food, housing, employment and the fair distribution of income. Effective measures should be undertaken to ensure that women have an active role in the development process. Appropriate economic and social reforms should be carried out with a view to eradicating all social injustices.

2. States should encourage popular participation in all spheres as an important factor in development and in the full realization of all human rights.(...) ’ [8]

The neoliberal policies enforced globally since the 1980s have thwarted the implementation of the said United Nations Declaration. The CADTM needs to take a sharp turn at the international level, redefine international cooperation to finally start implementing this fundamental text of the United Nations as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) [9] and the International Covenant on civil and political rights (ICCPR) [10].

The planet’s richest countries have the obligation to transfer resources to the South so that the basic needs of people can be met. For us, such transfers imply the indebtedness of the Northern countries to the Southern populations. Europe’s wealth since the 15th century partly resulted from the plundering of the South. So somehow we need to provide some reparations and compensations for this centuries-old plunder (outright theft, unequal trade, etc.). Therefore, it’s not a matter of our generosity or charity but a duty to make amends.

We question development finance conceived by the North as an extension of their foreign policy and as an appendage of their export industries, including the service sector. We want a mechanism for transfers and reparations leading to direct results for the people involved, along with development projects designed by Southern citizen movements in a sovereign manner. We want the communities within the Southern societies to have control over the allocation of funds. Regarding reparations, we want an end to claims for the repayment of illegitimate debts, the return of ill-gotten gains (e.g. cultural goods displayed in western museums - Louvre, British Museum, Tervuren near Brussels, Vienna, New York... - as property unlawfully acquired by the North as a result either of war and looting or of corrupted governments of the South selling off their countries’ heritage), the end of mechanisms used by the Northern pharmaceutical or seeds companies to plunder the Southern biodiversity, the revocation of bilateral investment treaties shamelessly promoting major international private companies, the questioning of trade and investment treaties that are weapons of mass destruction for local producers who succumb to the competition with big private exporting companies. These are the global mechanisms on which we have to operate. If we can stop the plundering of the South and the transfer of wealth from the South to the North, cooperation in human development would be much less required.

Perspectives

After half a century of activity, failure to produce sustainable change is central to the critique of the work done around development cooperation. What do you think of questioning the legitimacy of NGOs as true agents of change?

In any event, we should always question the legitimacy of the organizations and their policy. In particular, we should thoroughly analyze the results of their actions. I think that a major portion of the NGO work, even if done in a positive and not monopolizing or self-centered spirit, is still widely questionable and limited. Nevertheless, just as development assistance can be questioned, it also depends on who formulated it. If the Southern people challenge the paternalist role of Northern NGOs or their kind of action, particularly their standard of living, I totally understand (e.g. the employees of humanitarian NGOs travel in expensive cars and are sometimes provided with comfortable accommodation while at the same time, the agency or state sending this emergency aid requests the receiving State to lay-off public servants or not to grant health or education benefits to its employees). Obviously, their legitimacy must be questioned in such a case. We see it every day: during a Southern humanitarian crisis we send Northern agencies and the money earmarked for Northern development aid goes to them, we charter Northern aircrafts, pay Northern medical staff, purchase medicines from Northern pharmaceutical companies, etc. whereas local health professionals are available and we could purchase medicines in India, South Africa, Brazil or Cuba. This type of attitude must be challenged.

According to your latest policy impact assessment (the CADTM’s ultimate goal of a virtuous circle), very few laws have been adopted despite a marked progress in the process of awareness-building for decision makers: ’the financial obligations of States somewhat continue to take precedence over human rights everywhere.” What do you think of this lack of political outlets?

Like other organizations, the CADTM finds it extremely difficult to get political results from the decision-makers, such as a government or parliament. An example: with the help of other North / South solidarity movements we made the Belgian Senate adopt a resolution on Belgium’s need to conduct an audit on its debt claims on poor Southern countries. Though a majority of the Senate adopted the resolution, it was blocked by the government, especially the finance and cooperation ministers, leaders of a right-wing neoliberal political family, who decided that a resolution is not binding, is not a law, and that there was no money to conduct these audits. Years later, we have been unable to assemble enough convinced parliamentarians for turning this resolution into a law so that Belgium is obliged to act. Our political results have not met our expectations in this area.

Confronted with problems that have become global, how can the NGO sector influence major policy decisions to produce long-awaited radical changes?

NGOs need to create a front with larger forces, especially big trade unions, peoples’ organizations and movements, political parties who want serious changes. We must succeed in increasing the number of social, civic and political forces which are involved with and supportive of the political priorities that we promote. This requires a major effort because these organizations are always mobilized around national, regional or local issues. Discussions on the Third World debt, international trade agreements, bilateral investment treaties, policies of the WTO and the World Bank go beyond such immediate boundaries. Therefore, it’s a challenge. We are working on it but the results are not as obvious as we would like them to be.

What is the relationship between the CADTM and the development NGOs? Is there any competition within the sector?

The approach of the CADTM, which is a movement, towards other movements and associations in the field of human development and change is very clear: we seek maximum convergence. That means putting aside our differences and entering into strategic or specific agreements to bolster convergence on precise objectives. That is the focal point of the political charter of our international movement. [11] With this approach, we dedicate all our energy towards others working independently of the government. So we are not at all in any competition.

The alter-globalist movement is considered to be a continuation of Third Worldism. Do you agree?

Yes and no. The Third Worldist movement derived from a desire for North-South solidarity. Alter-globalization aspires to go beyond the North-South solidarity and build a common movement where we are not simply in a relationship of solidarity but joint action and a more intense cooperation. The CADTM has played an active role in the formation of the alter-globalist movement since the 1990s. We have participated in the World Social Forum since its inception in 2000-2001. We have contributed to the creation of the term “alter-globalist” (at first the media spoke of anti-globalization while we prefer another globalization, hence the term “alter-globalization”).

Since 2005, it is said that the alter-globalist movement has run out of steam, even failed. What do you think?

The alter-globalist movement is suffering from a crisis since 2005-2006. It peaked in the second half of the 1990s and early 2000s with a huge capacity for mobilization against the WTO, WB, IMF, G7, G8 and sometimes came up with a large number of ideas. Meanwhile, the World Social Forum (WSF) was formed which brought together a significant part of alter-globalist activists from all around the world. This success has redefined the strategies of major organizations and we have been attacked from important quarters. The alter-globalist movement can no longer make it difficult for the big international institutions to meet because these institutions have now decided to convene at inaccessible venues knowing full well how hated they are. There are also other factors: the success led to a group of forces, including NGOs, who now have significant means to join the dynamics of the WSF and have come into prominence; a tendency to institutionalize the WSF (which has become an economic factor, especially for the local hotel industry. Indeed, a WSF meeting which can assemble 100,000 or more people for 4-5 days is a high stake for the local tourist industry) which affected the sustenance of an independent critical approach, favoring activism; certain social forces that once propelled the WSF began to support governments (the center-right Prodi government in Italy, the governments of Lula and then Dilma in Brazil, etc.) following the logic of joint leadership with a friendly government. All this contributed to the institutionalization of the WSF.

Despite it all, the WSF remains a point of reference (see Éric Toussaint, ’The Social Forum, upon contact with a reality at boiling point, has produced a positive chemical reaction’ http://cadtm.org/Eric-Toussaint-The-Social-Forum published on 31 March 2013). However, it is encountering difficulties in defining strategies, priorities, ability to intervene in order to change the inacceptable course of things. Finding a new lease of life is a real problem for the alter-globalist movement.

’This is one of the most difficult periods of the past 15-20 years regarding the formulation of a structure and a process where different protests can converge and promote alternatives’

In 2011, the CADTM was very hopeful of the Indignados movement in Spain which spread to Greece, Portugal and then crossed the Atlantic with the Occupy Wall Street movement. It was great, but we realized that it was getting difficult for this movement to form an international structure, expand and maintain it through time. This important movement in which we participated was not related to the institutionalized dynamics of the World Social Forum. It was a new generation which joined the social and political action in an extraordinary manner. So this movement has not contributed to the older WSF movement. So far, this highly promising new movement has not found a strategy for expanding with time (see http://cadtm.org/From-the-Arab-Spring-to-the and http://cadtm.org/Indignadas-and-Indignados-of-the ). So we are in a situation where, in the end, we lack driving forces. The CADTM participated in the Indignados movement in Spain. Also when the Arab Spring happened in 2011, we were particularly active in a series of struggles taking place in Tunisia (dictator Ben Ali’s overthrow in January 2011) and Morocco (February 20 movement).

Moreover, and it is highly encouraging that there is a fairly strong momentum for the citizen debt audit in Europe (Spain, Portugal, Greece, France, Belgium... see ICAN http://cadtm.org/ICAN). The CADTM has played a decisive role in this new phenomenon. Even so, if public debt is an important element vis-à-vis austerity policy, we do not claim to bring together, through the citizen audit, as many people that gathered around the alter globalist or Indignados movements. These movements can unite all the alternative aspirations confronting an overbearing globalization. Hence, the CADTM playing its role in its own field wishes to be redeployed to other international networks for rejuvenating the alternative movement. We have not achieved this yet, which does not mean that we have given up. This is one of the most difficult periods of the past 15-20 years regarding the formulation of a structure and a process where different protests can converge and promote alternatives.

Are you optimistic about the possibility of North / South relations getting more balanced and the world getting more equal and just?

Extraction PDF Marxisms and Transitions

Very frankly, I am not optimistic, no. In the short term, I am worried because some very promising experimentations are taking rather disturbing turns, especially in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia. Contrary to media propaganda, these gave rise to genuine hope because there were political reforms with new democratic constitutions; important civic experiments; people reclaiming their natural resources; redeployment of public services; affirmation of a new-found dignity, sovereignty, and the aspiration for an alternative to the neoliberal model.

We are aware that these experimentations have shown their limitations since 2009-2010 (e.g. extremely slow operations of the Bank of the South even though it was officially launched in 2007). [12] There are phenomena of bureaucratization, loss of enthusiasm and energy, corruption... Governments are pursuing a development policy mainly based on exports of raw materials (petrol, gas, minerals, and agricultural products). Fortunately, their policies are still quite far from the neo-liberalism that exists in Europe or North America. But the ongoing South American processes have not yet found the right formula for the self-organization of the populations towards a political outlook – at a governmental level - which would be permanently based on popular control or on forms of self-management. These are emerging but without a proper expression yet.

Similarly, the Arab Spring and the 2011 Indignados movement faced difficulty in forming democratic forms of government breaking away from neo-liberalism. This is most evident in Egypt, but also true for Tunisia.

So I’m not optimistic in the short term. But I also observe that populations revolt periodically and successive rebellions end up with political results. The CADTM’s work is embedded in local processes in a number of European and Southern countries (Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia). I have also observed that the issue of illegitimate debt is progressively getting questioned and spreading consistently. It is not only a matter of challenging illegitimate, unsustainable, odious or /and illegal public debt, it is also important to fight for the cancellation of private, illegitimate debts claimed from millions of families abused by banks for mortgages (this is especially important in the United States, Spain, Ireland, in several Central and Eastern European countries), the hundreds of thousands of families affected by usurious interest rates in micro-credit especially in the global South, farmers (especially in India where more than 250,000 farmers, overburdened with debt, have committed suicide over the last ten years) also victims of usurious interest rates and policies of the World Bank. This implies new responsibilities for the CADTM and all organizations and individuals fighting for the cancellation of illegitimate debts.

In the medium and long terms, I am extremely hopeful that people would be able to take their destiny in hand vis-à-vis global challenges such as debt or climate change, though I would certainly not live to see this happen. I am also keen to contribute to the continuing struggle for emancipation. I am convinced that the coming generations will be able to come up with a new emancipatory project and organizational forms that will respond to the crises and the phenomena of institutionalization and fatigue, encountered by previous generations. Therefore, our priority is to train the young generation. And that’s one of the strengths of CADTM because our team is enlivened mostly by people between 20 and 45. This is also a cause for optimism.

How do you see the future of development cooperation in general and NGOs in particular?

The role of official Northern agencies of international cooperation can and should be criticized: they often highlight their humanitarian activity to cover up the foreign policy interests of their country and their government. Organizations such as the CADTM should criticize and point out the limitations of this approach.

I hope that the critics of the current form of cooperation have a stronger voice, that traditional cooperation enters a critical phase which is more acute than the one it is now encountering, that the tendency to impose cuts in development aid through the austerity policies, which is prevailing in the North, are offset by popular understanding that we need a North standing in solidarity with the rest of the planet and cooperation among equals. I hope that the North / South solidarity movements and the NGOs who think seriously would be able to question and act to prioritize structural issues. We should work on campaigns on globalizing issues that refer to structural and not conjunctural problems. I hope that the crisis of international cooperation; the dangers of austerity policies pursued by the current governments; the tendency to promote humanitarian, emergency and technical solutions will be overcome and that we will once again be able to take on the structural problems. These are our challenges and we will work with other forces in this direction. In any case, the future depends on the peoples’ struggle for social liberation.

Translated by Suchandra De Sarkar in collaboration with Christine Pagnoulle and Eric Toussaint.

Portfolio

Footnotes

[2Trevor-Roper, The Rise of Christian Europe, 1965 quoted by Jack Goody, The Theft of History, Cambridge University Press; Reprint edition (29 March, 2012)

[3Also read Paul Bairoch, Mythes et paradoxes de l’histoire économique, La Découverte/Pocket edition, Paris 1999, pg 288

[4Angus Maddison, The world economy: a millennial perspective, Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co–operation and Development (OECD), Paris, 2001, pp 403

[5See Eric Toussaint, ’La mondialisation du 15e au début du 20e s ou comment les Européens et le capitalisme se sont imposés par la violence au reste de la planète’, slides published on 13 March 2014,http://cadtm.org/La-mondialisation-du-15e-au-debut; also see Eric Toussaint’s ’Les enjeux de l’action de la Banque mondiale et du FMI de 1945 à2014’, slides published on 7 April, 2014,http://cadtm.org/Les-enjeux-de-l-action-de-la See also in English: Eric Toussaint, « Globalization from Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama until today », 21 March 2008, http://cadtm.org/Globalization-from-Christopher This article is an expanded version of a conference given by the author in Kerala (India) on January 24, 2008 entitled « Impacts of Globalization upon poor farmers”. Participants to this conference, in majority women issued from rural background, came in response to the invitation of the Santhigram association and VAK (member of the CADTM international network) within the framework of the World Week of Global Action launched by the World Social Forum.

[6World Bank. 1986. Global Development Report 1987, Washington DC, pg. 4. Quoted in Eric Toussaint, The World Bank: a never-ending coup d’état. The hidden agenda of the Washington Consensus, Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, India, 2007, chapter 10.

[7See ATTAC / CADTM Morocco, ’Micro-credit or the business of poverty’, brochure in pdf, published on 26 February 2014, http://cadtm.org/Le-micro-credit-ou-le-business-de and http://cadtm.org/Caravane-Internationale-contre-le

[8For the UN Declaration on the Right to Development see : http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/41/a41r128.htm

[9The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was adopted in New York on 16 December 1966 by the General Assembly in its resolution 2200 (XXI). It came into effect on 3 January 1976. See the full text of the pact and the list of signatories on the United Nations website: https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-3&chapter=4&lang=en.%20Voir%20une%20pr%C3%A9sentation%20succincte%20:%20http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacte_international_relatif_aux_droits_%C3%A9conomiques,_sociaux_et_culturels&clang=_en

[10The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) was adopted in New York on 19 December 1966 by the General Assembly in its resolution 2200A (XXI). It came into effect on 23 March 1976. See the full text here : https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20999/volume-999-I-14668-English.pdf

[11Read the text of the charter here: http://cadtm.org/Political-Charter

[12Read Eric Toussaint, Bank of the South. An Alternative to IMF-World Bank, Syllepse, Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, India, 2008. It can be freely downloaded in PDF format here : http://cadtm.org/Bank-of-the-South-An-Alternative See also : Daniel Munevar (CADTM), ’BRICS Bank: Is it an alternative for development finance?’, 28 July 2014, http://cadtm.org/BRICS-Bank-Is-it-an-alternative