More than 30 participants attended the meeting. Over the past five years, according to the ATN, the WTO regime has been used to contribute to the concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich few, increasing poverty and indebtedness for the majority of the world's population, and unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. According to the group, the WTO and its agreements have been used to prise open developing country markets for the benefit of transnational corporations with adverse effects on national economies, workers, farmers, women and the environment in Africa. Governments, which dominate the WTO, and Transnational Corporations which have benefited from the WTO system, have, the group says, refused to recognise and address the problems affecting poor countries. The ATN also has called on developing countries, particularly African countries, to defend and expand the scope of Special and Differential Rights in the WTO in order to ensure the protection of their development needs and aims.
Globalisation is a grand design to re-colonise the developing world.
We are very close to the abyss and only Africa can do it. Asian countries are getting some sweets and incentives from liberalisation but not Africa. Africa has everything to gain by resisting. The developed countries, through the TRIPs, now want the mandatory patenting of life forms and some natural processes. The Agriculture Agreement, the African Group says, should be changed to guarantee food security and the livelihoods of farmers in Africa.