For every £1 of aid they receive, developing countries lose an estimated £14 because of unfair trade rules.
UNICEF/HQ00-0196/Giacomo Pirozzi
The way that countries do business with each other is governed by a set of rules about trade, but these rules are biased in favour of the wealthiest countries and their business interests.
In return for aid, developing countries are often forced to open their markets to international competition. This can put local people out of business. Take farmers: rich countries spend nearly $1 billion every day subsidising their farmers. This means that farmers from rich countries can afford to dump their food on developing countries, pushing down prices. Meanwhile, poor countries can’t sell their products in rich countries because rich countries charge them high import taxes.
In return for aid or debt relief, poor countries can also be forced to privatise basic services like water and electricity (so they’re owned by private business and run for profit, rather than being owned by the government) which can make these things much more expensive for the people in that country.
In addition, workers in developing countries are being exploited for cheap labour by powerful, under-regulated multinational companies, leaving thousands of people open to abuse and exploitation. Big businesses make big profits on things like clothes or food by paying very low wages to the people who make them in developing countries. Therefore, no matter how hard people work in the developing world, or how much their countries produce, current trade practices benefit the rich world the most.
Because trade laws aren’t fair, developing countries can’t trade their way out of poverty. In fact, for every £1 of aid they receive, developing countries lose an estimated £14 because of unfair trade rules.
The result is misery for hundreds of millions of children who just want an equal chance to survive and thrive – grow up healthy, go to school and create a better future for themselves.
Rich countries continue to use trade rules to protect themselves - it is one of the ways they got rich in the first place; UNICEF UK thinks it’s fair to make trade rules work to help end child poverty.