Sulawesi - GIS

Seventy per cent of the world's poorest people live in rural areas and depend on agriculture. The Millennium Development Goal of reducing poverty and halving the proportion of people earning less than $ 1 per day can only be achieved by improving the lot of poor farmers and creating

viable agricultural communities. Poor farmers cannot escape the poverty trap if they are forced to compete with products subsidized by the richest countries, in world trade and their own domestic markets. The elements of a solution include effectively pursuing the process of reform in market access, domestic support and export competition, while providing greater flexibility for developing countries to pursue rural development and food security. Most importantly, there is need for the EU, Japan and the United States to reduce subsidies, cut tariff and non-tariff protection, address tariff peaks and escalation. The recent decision to reform the EU's Common Agricultural Policy is a positive step, but this needs to be translated into ambitious negotiating proposals.

Based on UNDP, 2003. UNDP Policy Statement on Trade Issues at Fifth World Trade Organization Ministerial Meeting, Cancun, Mexico (September 2003).

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