Press releases

NGOs congratulate leaders for rejecting energy eco-imperialism: "The poor have nothing to lose but their poverty"
press release 4 September 2002

'Bullshit Award for Sustaining Poverty' Awarded to Vandana Shiva
Barun Mitra, Liberty Institute
www.libertyindia.org
Thursday August 29, 2002
At a mass rally today in Johannesburg, the winner of the Bullshit Award for Sustaining Poverty was announced. In a closely run race, the winner was chosen for her important contribution to sustaining poverty around the world, in her role as a mouthpiece of western eco-imperialism. In front of a rapt crowd of farmers from Africa and Asia, the award - a plaque mounted with a cow manure, representing the traditional agricultural technology that the winner favours - was bestowed on Ms. Vandana Shiva. Other award nominees included Greenpeace International, BioWatch, SAFeAGE, and the Third World Network.

Farmers From Africa and Asia March to Demand the Freedom to Trade
press release 27 August 2002

Free the Poor from UN-Development
27 August 2002, Johannesburg

Informal Business Forum of South Africa
Mass March to Summit: Street Hawkers Demand Freedom to Trade
Wednesday 28 August 2002, Johannesburg

Articles

The Lords of Eco-Poverty
Julian Morris, IPN
Wall Street Journal Europe
Friday September 06, 2002
The air temperature rose in Johannesburg for the past fortnight. Many first-timers here said this winter weather was unusually warm, and attributed it to human impact on the climate. But locals say it isn't the weather that was unusual; but the amount of hot air that rose from the Sandton Convention Centre and surroundings. Particularly worrying were the activities of a group called the "ECO-equity coalition," which claims that the developed world doesn't care about the poor. Yet it is the ECO-equity coalition and their friends in the EU that cared not for the poor.

Seedy Politics
Kendra Okonski , IPN
techcentralstation.be
Friday September 06, 2002
An oncoming famine threatens poor southern Africans. And yet Mwanawasa has joined the leaders of several other poor southern African countries, including Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, refusing to accept food aid from the United States. Meanwhile, anti-biotechnology activists are cynically taking advantage of this famine, using the decisions of Mwanawasa and Mugabe to enhance their opposition to agricultural technologies that might help save lives and alleviate poverty.

I do not need white NGOs to speak for me
James Shikwati , Inter Region Economic Network (Kenya)
The Times (London)
Tuesday September 03, 2002
The hundreds of NGOs and environmental groups assembled at the World Summit on Sustainable Development would like us to believe that they are the best spokesmen for the world’s needy. But as First World delegates sat in conference halls and debated, African and Indian farmers hit the streets of Johannesburg to tell the world what they really want and need — not sustainable development but economic growth. The contrast is stark between many developed country NGOs and the people they claim to represent: wealthy countries want the Earth to be green, the underdeveloped want the Earth fed.

Food Fight
Roger Bate, IPN
3 September 2002
Up to14 million people are at risk from starvation in Southern Africa, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation. Food aid has flooded in from Europe and America and for some the risk is diminishing, but for the majority the danger is acute. For 300,000 Zambians it's especially worrying since they are not able to eat the food aid because it's alleged to be contaminated. But it's not spoiled or poisoned - just genetically modified.

Poverty is truly miraculous
Leon Louw , Free Market Foundation
Sunday Telegraph
Sunday September 01, 2002
This sort of poverty is miraculous. Ghastly, but miraculous, and perhaps the most extraordinary accomplishment of modern governments. Poor countries are the world's true "economic miracles", not post-war Germany, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Botswana or Mauritius. Prosperity in such countries is no "miracle". It is the natural outcome of relative economic freedom. If there are "economic miracles", they are backward countries, where governments have succeeded in preventing prosperity. India is a nation of manifestly energetic and enterprising people. If left alone, they would prosper. This was clearly demonstrated when India implemented modest pro-market reforms and the country was rewarded with one of the world's highest growth rates.

Genetically modified food fight
Roger Bate , IPN
UPI
Sunday September 01, 2002
The battle of Indian non-governmental organizations simply will not die down. After a news conference Sunday, old foes Vandana Shiva and Barun Mitra argued over whether Gujarati farmers wanted to plant genetically modified, or BT, seed

At World Summit, Strange Bedfellows
Brett Stephens
Jerusalem Post
Friday August 30, 2002
James Shikwati is not your typical summiteer. Pace the floors of the World Summit on Sustainable Development's conference hall, in the ultra-luxurious Johannesburg suburb of Sandton, and you'll come across plenty of literature denouncing (in the words of the World Federalist Movement), "the negative and dangerous forces of neoliberal economic globalization." Even summit delegates, while ostensibly not averse to market-based solutions to environmental problems, call for "levelling the playing field in globalization." Shikwati has a different agenda. The 32-year-old Kenyan is director of the Nairobi-based Inter Region Economic Network, an organization that promotes market-oriented solutions for Africa's developmental problems.

Poor Choices
James Shikwati , IREN Kenya
www.joburg.techcentralstation.com
Thursday August 29, 2002
The World Summit on Sustainable Development has focused on the issue of poverty. In his opening remarks South African president Thabo Mbeki, lamenting the current inequalities between the wealthy and poor, called for "wealth sharing" as a way out. How does he propose to go about this?

Bush was Right
James Glassman, techcentralstation.com
29 August 2002

Traders, farmers unite at summit protest
Roger Bate , IPN
UPI
Thursday August 29, 2002
Under a banner calling for "Freedom to Trade," an array of several hundred local street traders, rural farmers and the unemployed marched in the streets of Johannesburg Wednesday to present petitions to the city council and World Summit organizers. Leon Louw, the march coordinator for the Informal Business Forum (known locally as the street traders or hawkers), explained that Johannesburg city leaders decided to oust the street traders from Sandton prior to the beginning of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, explaining they might constitute a security risk to the attendees. But for Louw it's a clear example of "the white elite opposed to African-style trading," he told United Press International.

The Miracle of Poverty
Leon Louw , Free Market Foundation
Wall Street Journal Europe
Thursday August 29, 2002
Development is by its very nature sustainable, providing the human, financial and technological resources to render it so. The best thing we can do for future generations is generate maximum wealth, empowering them to live better lives. If anything is unsustainable it is the alternatives to development: stagnation and regression.

Heated debate over GM food at Summit
Roger Bate , IPN
UPI
Thursday August 29, 2002
Though 14 million people face starvation in southern Africa, the controversy over genetically modified seed loomed Wednesday at the Johannesburg summit on sustainable development. In an increasingly vitriolic debate, GM critics argue that it is not an unacceptable solution, and supporters hail it as the answer to Africa's number one problem.

The world's energy poor need hydrocarbon fuels
Philip Stott
Daily Telegraph
Tuesday August 27, 2002
In brief: are command-and-control methods of government regulation the best way to safeguard the environment while allowing for economic growth? Or would market-based mechanisms -- such as the market in tradeable permits for sulphur dioxide emissions --- be more sustainable in the long-run? Likely areas of conflict at the summit are: ratification of various green treaties, increasing, increasing the proportion of foreign aid that is transmitted via NGOS, the precautionary restriction of international trade, privatizing water, the rejection of genetically modified food aid, and the proper pricing of drugs that combat AIDS. If the Earth Summit does nothing to liberate the Asian and African fuel gatherers from their burdens, then it will have failed abysmally, says Philip Stott

Africa's shady politicians are at the root of the continent's destruction
George Ayittey , Free Africa Foundation
Daily Telegraph
Tuesday August 27, 2002
Africa's potential is enormous, yet it is inexorably mired in steaming squalor, misery, deprivation, and chaos. Four out of 10 Africans live in absolute poverty and recent evidence suggests that poverty is on the increase. Most Africans today are worse off than they were at independence.

Why is Africa in this state? "Externalists" ascribe Africa's woes to factors beyond its control: Western colonialism and imperialism, the slave trade, racist plots, avaricious multinationals, an unjust international economic system, inadequate flows of foreign aid and deteriorating terms of trade. "Internalists" blame local systems of governance: excessive state intervention and corruption at all levels, from the police and judiciary to the highest branches of government.