FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NOVEMBER 21, 2003
9:17 AM
CONTACT: Women's Edge Coalition
Ana Rahona, 202-884-8399 (office) or 202-236-5341 (cell phone in Miami); e-mail: arahona@womensedge.org
FTAA Declaration Leaves Women in Poverty, Says the Women's Edge Coalition
Negotiations End A Day Early in Miami
   MIAMI, Fl - November 21- Last night negotiators hastily issued a watered down draft declaration, ending trade negotiations a day early at the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) meeting in Miami. After the collapse of talks this September at the WTO meeting in Cancun, negotiators did not want to risk another failure, and came to a compromise with this draft declaration, which contains a great deal of rhetoric and few specifics on how to resolve outstanding issues.

"This clearly indicates that global trade talks are in trouble," said Ritu Sharma, Co-founder and Executive Director, Women's Edge Coalition. "Negotiators could not resolve any of the problems that have plagued them for years. It is clear that developing countries want a fair deal that will lift their poor, the majority of whom are women, out of poverty. What they got was a lot of empty promises and no action."

Although negotiators considered including a reference to labor and the environment, it was dropped in the final declaration and negotiators never even considered mentioning women or the poor. Women in this hemisphere are the vast majority of the poor, and if a goal of the FTAA is to pull the poor out of poverty, then the FTAA must address women or it will fail in its mission.

The Women's Edge Coalition developed the Trade Impact Review (TIR), a framework to assess the positive and negative impacts of a trade agreement before it is signed. Doing a Trade Impact Review for the FTAA would uncover how it will affect the poor, allowing negotiators to resolve those issues in the trade text prior to the completion of the talks scheduled for January 2005.

"Without conducting a Trade Impact Review, negotiators are blindly making decisions that will devastate the lives of millions of poor women," added Sharma. "We cannot condemn more women to an unending cycle of poverty when a Trade Impact Review could easily uncover ways women could benefit from the global economy. We are asking the U.S. government to conduct this review so that trade works for women."

About the Women's Edge Coalition

The Women's Edge Coalition, created in 1998, advocates with the U.S. government for international economic and human rights policies that support women worldwide in ending poverty in their lives, communities and nations. The organization pushes for pioneering development aid programs and offers positive alternatives to current trade policies that benefit and empower the poorest women. The Women's Edge Coalition has researched and developed several initiatives including the GAINS for Women and Girls Act and the Trade Impact Review. For more information visit http://www.womensedge.org

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