The impending Post-Cotonou Agreement will define trade and development relations between Europe and 79 African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries for the next 20 years. During the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, the agreement will determine the capacity of ACP states to exercise their economic sovereignty and shape the path of their own recovery and development. Europe’s negotiating positions push a liberalization agenda through attempts to enhance protection for their investors in ACP markets and secure “undistorted access” to ACP natural resources, effectively reinforcing neo-colonial patterns that ACP governments are concerned to transform. While struggling to contend with the COVID-19 pandemic, state capacity is being drained by negotiations that have shifted online, becoming more secretive and exclusionary of civil society as a result.
This second webinar in a nine-part series entitled 'Trade Justice in the Time of COVID-19' organized by the Gender and Trade Coalition (GTC) is convened by GTC Co-Chair, Regions Refocus. It is moderated by Anita Nayar (Regions Refocus) and includes the following speakers:
- David Abdulah (Movement for Social Justice);
- Mereoni Chung (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era);
- Rosalea Hamilton (Caribbean Philanthropic Alliance);
- Tetteh Hormeku-Ajei (Third World Network–Africa); and
- Maureen Penjueli (Pacific Network on Globalisation).
Event Recording
Convenors
