A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post noting that the global food prices debate was hallmarked by three competing schools of thought on trade contesting food as a key battleground. One schools thinks liberalisation is the answer (think World Bank). A second reckons self-sufficiency is the way forward (think 1970s import substitution). A third likes long-term bilateral contracts (think of China’s approach to securing energy food supplies). But as I wrote at the time, it seemed to me that the none of these three approaches really offered a complete answer.
Talking to friends at NGOs recently, it seems they think so too. But that’s not to say that they’ve got a fully worked-up narrative yet either.
Back in 2005, during the heyday of Make Poverty History and the One Campaign, the mainstay of development NGOs’ policy agenda on trade was something called “policy space“. In a nutshell, policy space was an argument that developing countries should have the freedom to set their own trade rules rather than have liberalisation, or any other standardised approach, forced upon them: they should have the ‘space’ to determine their own policy in other words.
Fast forward to today, though, and the policy space narrative is starting to look in need of renewal – for three reasons.
The first is that arguments about policy space are fighting the last war. NGO activists love to saddle up to fight the evil Washington Consensus, with its dark plans of forcing privatisation, liberalisation and other ills on hapless low income countries. Just one problem: the Washington Consensus ended 15 years ago. Today, the idea that NGOs did so much to champion back then – that there are no one-size-fits-all answers in development – has gone mainstream.
Secondly, the policy space argument is silent about the trade issue that is at the top of developing country governments’ in-tray: security of supply. On food, energy and other commodities, the big worry this year is about scarcity of strategic resources – and as the Philippines discovered this year when its rice supply chains sputtered, all the policy space in the world is no use if the goods you need aren’t for sale.
Finally, arguments in favour of policy space rest on the problematic assumption that if only developing countries were free to take their own decisions, everything would be fine. But what about when developing countries use their policy space to take decisions that are extremely problematic for other poor countries – for instance when Argentina, Kazakhstan, Vietnam or India decide to reduce or suspend exports, leaving other countries (like the Philippines) in the lurch? Policy space has lots to say about developing countries’ rights, in other words – but what about their responsibilities?
While there’s no shortage of specific ideas and policy proposals in the trade context that can help to move things forward on the food prices agenda, what’s still lacking is a narrative that set out the basic approach.
