In a move that would have been unheard of in 2001, and was a major issue at that World Social Forum, Debt Relief is finally on the agenda of the World Economic Forum. I can do little more that applaud this initiative but I remain skeptical about the implementation of this.

What is dumbfounding however is Howard’s response: “I think the biggest thing the developed world can do to alleviate poverty is to remove trade barriers.’

”The benefits of that are infinitely better than direct aid. Direct aid works well in some cases, in many other cases, because of poor governance, it works very badly.

”Sovereign debt relief in the short term rewards the treasuries of the indebted countries and unless there’s a guarantee that that is then channelled to poverty alleviation, it can be very unproductive.

”That’s not to say we’re opposed to all debt relief. We have involved ourselves in programmes helping the highly indebted developing countries.”

His comments are just so painfully wrong, it defies the imagination. It is precisely this dogmatic market fundamentalism that has driven the IMF since the 1980s and precisely the reason these countries are in the states they are in. Moreover, to flatly describe every developing nation as corrupt is not only wrong but the opportunities for corruption are generally magnified with liberalisation. More often than not this means the selling of state assets at deflated prices while corrupt leaders skim off the top.

Mr Howard would do well to read Stiglitz’s book (which I’m reading at the moment). What is needed (if you adhere to a ‘gentler’ market-based solution) is a careful program of ‘synchronisation’ where economic barriers are slowly reduced as the country’s economy can manage. To automatically drop all trade barriers is to ignore the route to prosperity that just about every developed country in the world has taken, and arguably still takes. All of the G7 and the Asian Tiger Economies took their time to liberalise their markets and this is what makes them strong today.

Howard’s comments simply don’t make economic sense, let alone social or environmental sense.

Incidentally, I’m disappointed but hardly surprised that the World Social Forum has not received one mention in the mainstream press.