Food sovereignty and health for all women worldwide, how the EU is blocking it in the WTO

This web seminar helps to educate those interested and involved in citizen's actions to better understand why our economic system is structured so unequally for many people, in particular to many women. It will reflect on how the EU and EU member states continue to legalize this inequality.

We will look at the TRIPS agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which is the global agreement on who can own intellectual property and under which conditions.

Why are vaccines for COVID only available through expensive private companies? Why is the economic system not geared towards producing as much as vaccines possible for as many people worldwide? The seminar will explain why countries in the Global South are proposing a TRIPS waiver for COVID-19 and why the counter arguments of the EU to not change the current global trading rules are not offering real solutions and are based on false assumptions.

Secondly the seminar will dig deeper into the processes and structure of WTO as a powerful institution, explaining how the EU is continuing to negotiate for global rules to support European business at the expense of women’s access to health and to food.

Speakers:

Yuan Qiong Hu│Senior Legal & Policy Advisor, at Médecins Sans Frontières

Ranja Sengupta│Senior Economist with the Third World Network.

Moderated by Michelle R. Maziwisa│Research Fellow, representative FEMNET

In English with Spanish and German interpretation.

Organizers: Forum Umwelt und Entwicklung, WIDE+, WO=MEN, Anders Handeln, Gender Trade Coalition and Seattle to Brussels Network.