DEVELOPMENT:
Brazil's Lula Stakes Bets on South and Anti-Hunger Fight

Mario Osava


SAO PAULO,  (IPS) - Rich countries will not make trade concessions merely because the countries of the South demand them -- what is needed is a political force that can change the face of international relations, said Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as he explained his foreign policy to social activists Tuesday.

With that goal in mind, Brasilia has tried first to unite South America and then to build bridges with other countries, blocs and regions, which Lula has visited in his first year and a half in the presidency.

India, China, Africa and the Middle East form part of that search for alliances and the effort to strengthen developing countries in order to negotiate on more equal footing with the powerful nations or blocs of the industrialised North.

The fight against hunger is the ''main theme'' of his presidential diplomacy, Lula said in a meeting with activists participating in the Civil Society Forum in the context of the eleventh sessions of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), under way this week in the Brazilian metropolis of Sao Paulo.

Making hunger and poverty a political matter, not just a social problem, is the route for finding solutions, and to do so, societal pressure on governments and parliaments is essential, said the president, a former metalworker and a founder of the governing leftist Workers Party (PT).

A global programme against hunger is the banner that Lula carries to all meetings and forums he participates in. To achieve that goal, he proposes the creation of an international fund that could be fed by some sort of tax on speculative financial transactions, especially those conducted in international ''tax havens'', or on weapons deals.

He will present an initiative in that vein on Sep. 20 to the heads of state and government to gather in New York at the beginning of this year's sessions of the U.N. General Assembly.

France and Chile have already expressed support for the proposal, Lula said in his presentation Tuesday to government and international institution delegates present for a panel discussion on innovative ways of financing development, taking place as part of UNCTAD XI.

To show that it would not be difficult to obtain resources, the Brazilian president stressed that in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), approved by the U.N. in 2000 and intended to halve the number of hungry people in the world by 2015, ''only 50 billion dollars more are needed, according to estimates by international institutions.''

That sum represents ''just two months of the agricultural subsidies granted by the developed countries and just three weeks of what the world spends on weapons,'' he said by way of comparison.

Lula said his country is doing its part, lending legitimacy to its promotion of the initiative. The ''Zero Hunger'' programme, which he launched when he took office in January 2003, is slated to benefit 11 million families before his term ends in 2006.

To date, 4.5 million families are involved in the programme, and the total is expected to reach 6.5 million by the end of the year. Through Zero Hunger, each participating low-income family receives a monthly stipend for the purchase of food.

The president said his government is promoting a broad-based mobilisation -- involving civil society -- for the fight against hunger and poverty.

In this context, ''Solidarity Week'' is scheduled in August as an opportunity for everyone -- trade unions, non-governmental organisations, church groups and the business community -- to ''announce what they are doing'' and make commitments towards achieving the MDGs in Brazil.

Those goals are related to international trade as well, Lula stressed. Developing countries must be strengthened, through unity, in order to negotiate for more just trade relations, without fighting against other trade partners, but rather seeking ''complementarity'' in the world such that countries can ''export the products they do best.''

An example of solidarity with and help for the poorest, according to Lula, was the Brazilian complaint in the World Trade Organisation against U.S. subsidies for its cotton growers, obtaining a ruling ostensibly favourable to the South American giant.

But ''it isn't only Brazil that benefits most from that lawsuit, but also the African countries for which cotton is the main export,'' he said.

''Without a policy of solidarity'' amongst developing countries, ''we will not be able to take the necessary steps,'' he said, noting that his government sometimes stimulates imports from countries that are facing difficulties, despite lower prices from other sources. One recent case is Brazil's acquisition of rice from Uruguay, he said.

The assistant general secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), José Olivio Miranda Oliveira, asked Lula to use his leadership role to push for a global forum that would discuss ways of overcoming the negative effects of the current globalisation process, including means that involve trade.

The Brazilian president responded that the developing world cannot agree to the so-called social clause in international trade because it would make it impossible to escape poverty, since poor countries would not be able to compete with rich countries that have had broad labour rights in place for a century and remain competitive because of their advanced technologies.

It is then a question of seeking ''other mechanisms of social promotion,'' in dialogue between governments and the union movement, which puts the global social question in the perspective of the South, given that the social clause is being ruled out, Miranda Oliveira told IPS.

The worsening of the world's social problems calls for an urgent definition of innovative mechanisms for reversing that trend, said the ICFTU official.