Trade Talking

This initiative uses the medium of television to raise awareness about and inspire action related to trade issues. The 5-minute films in the series focus on the WTO talks in the Doha round and what organisers describe as "their potentially disastrous impact on developing countries' economies." With individual stories filmed in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Philippines and Zambia, each film focuses on a specific industry or service crucial to a country's economy - fisheries in Indonesia; rice in the Philippines; the garment and dairy industries under threat in Zambia, Kenya and India; and drug manufacture in Brazil.

The core communication strategy is highlighting specific, personal stories to illustrate the way in which the global talks may affect the lives of particular, everyday people living in communities around the world. For example, in the Brazilian film, Fatima attributes her good health to Brazil's AIDS programme, which provides free drug treatment to all its HIV sufferers. But, according to the film, if the final WTO agreement forces Brazil instead to buy expensive patented drugs from global pharmaceutical companies, Fatima - "like the majority of her fellow citizens - won't be able to afford the health care vital to her and her children's survival." From the Philippines: Ka Tolits from Nueva Ecija has been encouraging his fellow farmers to lobby their government to resist "a bad deal at the WTO meeting. The WTO wants the Philippines to open up its rice markets to cheap, foreign imports. If this happens, local farmers will be ousted from their share of their own country's market; the farming industry in the Philippines will decline and the country will be forced to rely on imports from other countries. The two million Filipino rice farmers who support themselves and their families will lose their livelihood, and Filipino rice crops will go to waste."

All six Trade Talking films have been translated and dubbed into Portuguese, Hindi, Indonesian, Kiswahili and Tagalog for national and regional broadcast. They are also available in English from TVE's London distribution office (please see contact information, below). Those with access to the internet may view the films on the Oxfam International website.

Rights, Economic Development.

According to organisers, developing country trade ministers and Oxfam International spokespeople caution that, if the European Union (EU) and United States succeed in "forcing developing countries to open up their markets to cheap, heavily subsidised imports of agricultural products and services, income streams that are critical to developing countries' economies will deteriorate and die." Trade Talking seeks to introduce members of the global public to these perspectives.