A NORTH Yorkshire woman is helping to plead the case for developing countries at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg.

Penny Fowler, originally from York, is part of an international Oxfam delegation to the conference on sustainable development.

The 34-year-old trade policy advisor for Oxfam will be meeting with world leaders to call for a radical overhaul of world trade rules to ensure that international trade benefits the world's poorest people, not just rich nations and big business.

Penny attended Mill Mount Grammar School and York Sixth Form College, before going on to university in Bristol and Oxford.

She then went on to work as an economist in the Ministry of Trade and Commerce in the Pacific island of Fiji for two-and-a-half years.

Penny, whose family still live in the York area, said: "Trade has the potential to lift millions of people out of poverty, but this potential is undermined by breath-taking double standards in the trade policies of rich countries.

"They pressure poor countries to open up their markets while protecting their own economies through import tariffs and subsidies.

"We must end this hypocrisy immediately if we are to stand any chance of lifting out of poverty the billion people who live on less than 70p a day."

She added: "If the world's leaders cannot change course to respond to the urgent needs of poor people and the environment, who can?"