Preparotory meeting for the WTO mini-ministerial

Prior to the beginning of the WTO mini-ministerial meeting on the modalities for the finalization of the Doha Round of negotiations, the South Centre organized a working lunch meeting on Tuesday 15 July 2008.

The objective of the meeting was to provide the South Centre's analysis of the revised agriculture text (including the proposals on the SSM) and the NAMA negotiations or text and also to look at the implications of the US Farm Bill in relation to the Doha mandate. The meeting was chaired by Ms. Aileen Kwa, Coordinator of the Trade for Development Programme, South Centre.

South Centre participates in Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized seminar on International Seminar on Trade and Climate Change

Darlan Marti, Programme Officer, Trade for Development Programme, participated in the International Seminar on Trade and Climate Change organised by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with IISD and ICTSD in Copenhagen from 18-20 June 2008.

South-North Dialogue of Food and Energy Security opens in Geneva, 17 June 2008

South Centre and the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Indonesia in Geneva organized this joint event to assess the underlying causes and policy dilemmas related to energy security, food security and livelihood security and multilateral responses required to correct the systemic issues.

H.E I Gusti Agung Wesaka Puja, Charge d'Affairs, Permanent Mission of Indonesia to Geneva and Dr. Yash Tandon, Executive Director of the South Centre provided the welcome address. Ambassador Puja stressed the need for multilateral responses to multidimensional crisis such as that of food security while Dr. Tandon laid out the systemic issues underlying food crisis and which requires a rethinking of existing development strategies.

Opening remarks were made by Mrs. Lakshmi Puri, Acting Deputy Secretary General of UNCTAD and by H.E Ambassador Juan Antonio Fernandez Ambassador of Cuba to the UN. Mrs Puri described the food crisis as an urgent wake up call in the area of development while Ambassador Antonio Fernandez illustrated the negative impact on the realization of the right to food of the worsening of the world food crisis, caused inter alia by the soaring food prices’.

Session 1: Understanding the Extent of the Problem

Mr. Josef Schmidhuber from Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reminded the audience that food prices will remain high as long as oil prices remain high.

Mr. Mbaye Ndiaye from Permanent Mission of Senegal stressed that agriculture should be high in the economic agenda at the national and intenational level and adequate resources should be mobilized to help developing countries, especially the LDCs.

Ms. Umpika Poonachit, Permanent Mission of Thailand shared the policy responses undertaken by Thailand - as a rice exporting, middle-income developing country, to tackle the food security issue.

Section 2: Causes and Possible Solutions

Ms. Teresa Cavero (Oxfam) explained how decades of wrong policy prescriptions to developing countries and forced liberalization have led to price crisis. Developing countries were forced to let agriculture fall apart and then forced to open their markets which were flooded with cheap imports. Unregulated capital and commodity markets and push towards biofuels has fueled food crisis.

Over 80 people are participating in the event from Missions to the UN of countries of the North and South in Geneva, NGOs and other development agencies.

Working Lunch on WTO Agriculture and NAMA Negotiations

Following the release in May 2008 of revised versions of the draft modalities texts for agricultural and NAMA WTO negotiations, the South Centre's Trade for Development Programme (TDP) drafted comments to both the texts.

On 16th June 2008, it organized a working lunch on WTO Agriculture and NAMA Negotiations to facilitate developing country delegations to analyse and respond to both the texts. Mr. Darlan Fonseca Marti and Ms. Luisa Rodriguez, Programme Officers, TDP, South Centre chaired the meeting.

South Centre in Media (Business Daily): Regional trade helps fight hunger

May 28, 2008: Regional trade agreements could not only serve to protect farmers in developing countries but could also be used for the swift distribution of food aid from neighbouring countries in times of famine.

Luisa Bernal, coordinator of the trade development programme at the South Centre in Geneva, made these remarks last week in an interview with IPS about the links between commodity dependence and development.

South Centre, together with ActionAid, recently concluded a report revealing how a few large players have secured most of the agricultural commodity business for themselves. South Centre is an intergovernmental organisation working at enhancing South-South cooperation.

Read complete news article at: http://www.bdafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7877&Itemid=5822

South Centre provides support to São Tomé and Príncipe the context of the Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations

Mr. Darlan F. Marti, Programme Officer, Trade for Development Programme provided support to São Tomé and Príncipe for the preparation of their market access offers on goods and services for submission to the European Union in the context of the Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations from 15 May to 22 May.

South Centre participates in the African Group Retreat on WTO Doha Negotiations

Ms. Luisa Rodriguez and Mr. Darlan F. Marti participated in the WTO African Group Seminar on Agriculture and NAMA modalities from 23-25 May 2008. The two programme officers with the Trade for Development Programme of the South Centre participated as speakers at several of the sessions of this seminar.

ECOWAS Workshop on Sensitive Products in the EPA negotiations

Ms. Luisa Rodriguez, Programme Officer, South Centre participated in the workshop to assess the process of identification, by the West African Region, of Sensitive Products in the EPA negotiations organized by the ECOWAS Commission in Bamako, Mali from 28 to 30 April 2008.

The South Centre was invited to participate in this event because of its research experience on EPAs and because of its contribution to the process of identification of Sensitive products in previous events organized by the region.

Comparative analysis of liberalisation schedules and other commitments of the African interim EPAs

Mr. Darlan F. Marti, Programme Officer, Trade for Development Programme at the South Centre served as a discussant in the session on "Comparative analysis of liberalisation schedules and other commitments of the African interim EPAs" at Brussels on 17 April 2008.

The session was organized by APRODEV, ODI and ECDPM as a part of their meeting on the EPA negotiations state of play and assessment of options of the way forward.

South Centre@UNCTAD XII: Millions of Small Producers Squeezed Out in the Commodities Game

UNCTAD is one of the few multilateral spaces available for developing countries where issues related to small producers can be defended. But more than ever before, we find that this space is shrinking. For all the talks in recent years, developed countries have failed to live up to a string of pledges to help developing countries create an environment that will help them in meeting market volatility and fluctuations head on.

"The space occupied by UNCTAD is the space developing countries should defend to protect the rights and livelihoods of the small farmers", this was one of main messages coming out of the event organized by the South Centre in partnership with Action Aid on 19th April 2008 as a pre-event to UNCTAD XII being held in Accra, Ghana.

The Event was chaired by Dr. Yash Tandon, Executive Director of the South Centre. The panelists included, among others, Ms. Dede Amanor-Wilks, International Director - West and Central Africa, Action Aid, Ms. Luisa Bernal, Coordinator - Trade for Development Programme, South Centre, and Mr. Mamadou Cissokho, President, ROPPA, Senegal.

UNCTAD XII Side Event: Trade, Commodities and Development: Perspectives on a Development Agenda in Commodities Trade

South Centre in partnership with Action Aid International is organizing a side event to the UNCTADXII conference in Accra, Ghana on 19 April 2008 from 12:30pm-3pm at the International Conference Centre.

The side event "Trade, Commodities and Development: Perspectives on a Development Agenda in Commodities Trade" will be chaired by Mr. Benjamin Mkapa, former President of Tanzania and Chairman of the South Centre.

The key objective of the event is to highlight the importance of taking action to address the problems linked to commodity dependence in developing countries, especially Africa. For more information about the event, the Agenda and the background documents in English, French and Spanish, please visit:
http://www.southcentre.org/Events/2008/2008Apr_UNCTADXII_Side_Event_19April.htm

or
http://www.unctadxii.org/en/Programme/Other-Events/Parallel-and-Side-Events/South-Centre-side-event/Key-Issues/

High Level Technical Meeting on EPAs: The Way Forward for the ACP

Ms. Luisa Rodriguez and Mr. Darla F. Marti, Programme Officers, Trade for Development Programme at the South Centre participated in the high-level technical meeting on EPAs organized by the Commonwealth Secretariat (UK) in Cape Town, South Africa from April 7-8, 2008.

Ms. Rodriguez gave a presentation on "Safeguards in EPAs" while Mr. Marti's presentation was on "EPA provisions regarding the Competition Policy."

The overall agenda of the meeting was to undertake a comprehensive stocktaking of EPAs that have been concluded in order to provide countries with an objective and accurate assessment of the content, character and implications of the various agreements that will help guide and inform their policy choices.

Informal Roundable Discussion - UNCTAD XII

South Centre organized an informal Roundtable Discussion today (31st March) on Commodities Issues in the context of UNCTAD XII from 12h30- 15h00 in Room XXIV, Palais des Nations. The event was organized in cooperation with Action Aid.

The Multilateral Trading System, the Doha Round and Regional Trade Agreements

Luisa Rodriguez, Programme Officer with the Trade for Development Programme, South Centre delivered a presentation on relationship between trade and development at the conference on "The Multilateral Trading System, the Doha Round and Regional Trade Agreements: Perspectives and Challenges for Mexico and Central American Countries" organized by the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation and the WTO Secretariat from 3-5 March 2008 in Mexico.

South Centre participates in the LDCs Ministerial Meeting in Lesotho

Luisa Bernal, Coordinator of the Trade for Development Programme of the South Centre participated in the LDCs ministerial meeting held in Maseru, Lesotho. The purpose of the meeting was to assess the current situation of the Doha round, particularly in terms of issues of particular interest to the LDCs, and contribute to strengthen the group's cohesiveness. This was the first time the group met at the Ministerial level since 2005, when ministers met right before the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial Conference.

Lecture on "Developing countries in the multilateral trading system and the concept of Special and Differential Treatment"

Darlan F Martí, of the Trade for Development Programme, delivered a lecture at the University of Grenoble on "Developing countries in the multilateral trading system and the concept of Special and Differential Treatment". The lecture was attended by students of the Master on Globalisation and International Economy.

South Centre participates in retreat of African Negotiators

South Centre trade experts participated to a retreat of African negotiators regarding the WTO Agricultural and Industrial trade negotiations. The retreat was held on 16 and 17 February 2008 and was convened by Côte d'Ivoire on behalf of the African Group. It provided negotiators with an opportunity to discuss the revised draft modalities for Agriculture and NAMA presented on 8 February 2008.

Luisa A. Rodriguez, Programme Officer for Agricultural goods, and Darlan F. Martí, Programme Officer for Industrial trade, assisted negotiators in better understanding some of the technical elements in the draft modalities texts, contributing to enhancing African negotiators positions in the various topics covered in the modalities texts.

South Centre in Media: EU Sugar Reform a Bitter Pill for Poorer Producers

This piece written by David Kleimann while working at the South Centre appears in the IPS Columnist Service.

(IPS/South Centre) - For more than three decades, the European Union has maintained an extremely costly supply management scheme for its domestic sugar market which insulates domestic producers from international market forces with price supports and tariffs and has resulted in domestic prices triple world market prices and a major production surplus. At the same time, the EU has granted duty free market access for guaranteed quantities to some of its former colonies at guaranteed prices, writes David Kleimann, a German expert on international law and international relations.

In February 2006, the EU adopted a radical reform programme of its sugar regime which is having severe effects. Some ACP high-cost producers are very likely to cease production because of the price reductions, while others will face a sharp reduction in their export earnings, and only a small group of competitive LDCSs will be able to comfortably continue to supply the EU market after the price reductions have been implemented and the preferences terminated. The EU has the moral and legal obligation to provide the small and vulnerable ACP economies with market access for sugar that is worth no less than the previous trade arrangement and that continues to contribute to the realisation of their economic development and poverty reduction.

Government officials from African countries visit South Centre

Government officials from African countries participating to AITIC's capacity building Official Fellowship Programme were recieved by Darlan Fonseca-Martí, of the Trade for Development Programme of the South Centre, on 7 February for an informal briefing about the WTO Doha negotiations. The group had an opportunity to discuss issues of their interest related to Agriculture, NAMA and Services negotiations. In addition, the group was presented with an overview of the Centre's trade-related capacity building activities.

South Centre participates in UNCTAD XII pre-event on Aid for Trade in Bangkok

Darlan F. Martí, Programme Officer, Trade for Development Programme, South Centre participated in the UNCTAD XII pre-event organized under the auspices of the Working Group on Trade of the United Nations Executive Committee on Economic and Social Affairs, in Bangkok from 24 -25 January 2008.

The meeting was organised as a pre-UNCTAD-XII event and, to that extent, aimed largely at influencing the debate and negotiations that will lead towards the Accra meeting. As a consequence, discussions were often aimed at issuing recommendations, although the agenda was not formulated in this manner. Event link: http://www.unctad.org/Templates/meeting.asp?intItemID=2068&lang=2&m=14941

Read the recent publication by South Centre jointly with ECDPM on Aid For Trade
"Aid for Trade: Twenty lessons from existing aid schemes" which reviews 3 major existing mechanisms of trade-related assistance and provides useful lessons for policymakers in the South and the North.