Catching up on reform - a challenge to economists
Just followed an APWLD webinar on the WTO and COVID19. I had also followed a Groundviews podcast where Sanjana H interviewed Anush Wijesinha, a young Sri Lankan trade economist . Anush’s core argument seemed to be that Sri Lanka lacked the fiscal space to respond to the pandemic and its aftermath because we were too late to implement the reforms that we should have had in place. I am not clear what exactly those reforms were, but listening to the webinar just now it struck me that it is not so simple. The webinar reminded me that WTO regulations on, for example agriculture goods and services, has systematically decimated domestic agriculture in developing countries and challenged food sovereignty and hurt the livelihoods of small farmers. WTO led liberalization and promotion of FDI in agriculture and natural resources has led to land grabs, seed grabs, water grabs, and natural resource grabs. It would be interested to know from Anush Wijesinha and others what h