Transcript
The United Nations' Millennium Development Goal of halving the world's extreme poverty by 2015 was achieved five years early. But Oxfam New Zealand's head says the beneficiaries are predominantly male. Rachael Le Mesurier says the UNDP's figures from 2014 show 70 percent of the 1.2 billion people who still live in extreme poverty are female, with a tenth of the world living on less than $US1.90 a day.
"So one of the things in this panel is we need to look at what can we do to try and get to that last 10 to 11 percent. Oxfam's position would be, focus on women and girls."
Ms Le Mesurier says the significant economic gains women have made in developed countries have been achieved by participation in the workforce, but this is not the case in developing nations. So can trade and trade deals improve the economic outlook for the most marginalised? Oxfam's head says an even playing field is fundamental.
"How much are we asking people to do the same thing when they have far less of an infrastructure to enable them to play the game in an equal way?"
Her views are echoed by Fairtrade Australia and New Zealand's CEO, Molly Harriss Olson.
"Freetrade needs to be one where the debates are in the open and in a transparent way where coming up with the solutions, and that the impacts on the livelihoods of the most marginalised are the most priority."
Ms Olson worked in the first Clinton administration's sustainable development council and has experience with the North American Free Trade Agreement. She says if Mexico sustained the same level of growth it had prior to NAFTA, it would now be on par with South Korea economically. However, New Zealand's deputy director of Foreign Affairs and Trade Vinny Nagaraj highlights a different perspective.
"What we have seen is poverty has been reduced in a really really dramatic way, alongside a really really dramatic expansion in trade and in commerce."
But is commerce and trade the key to lifting the final 10 percent out of extreme poverty? Molly Harriss Olson thinks so.
"I think it's been key. Clearly economic growth has been vital but we look at extreme poverty, we now days have extreme inequality so I'd say that there's a very complex underpinning to this."
Ms Olson credits the UN's MDG's and sustainable development goals with giving nations a blueprint for prosperity.
"They can enable humanity through the 193 governments, all the industries that are going to be already aligning around them in the communities that care about these issues, to all know where they're going, how to track it, how to measure it. And that I think is going to enable us to end poverty if we do it properly in our lifetime."
Economist and commentator Shamubeel Eaqub says the reduction in global economic inequality over recent years has also seen an increase in 'in country' inequality but he thinks this will change.
"Globalisation and increasing integration has been something that's been very common but I think the future, over the next ten-twenty to thirty years, is going to be a period where globalisation is going to be less commonly accepted."
MFAT's Vinny Nagaraj says in the Pacific context PACER Plus has many components that are unlike traditional global trade agreements.
"There is development assistance that is linked to it, there are labour mobility arrangements that are being discussed and support of utilising some of the benefits of the agreement. What does that mean? It means that we are trying to address some of the questions that have come up around the fact that context in the Pacific is different."
Mr Nagaraj says PACER Plus is more than just easing the exchange of goods and services, but Oxfam's Rachael Le Mesurier says a more holistic approach is required.
"It's not enough to have a focus on an economic lens. There has to be an environmental context particularly looking at social, health, education, tax systems."
Consensus among the panel was that an ongoing combination of aid and trade is necessary to elevate the Pacific's most marginalised but NGO's and trade delegates agreed innovation was key to remaining relevant.
