Is there any Development Agenda left in the Doha Development Round?

On 5 December, the South Centre organised an invitation-only brainstorming discussion on the Development content of the Doha Round at the World Trade Organisation.

Leading the discussions were H.E. Mme Maria Nzomo, Ambassador, Permanent Mission of Kenya to the WTO and Dr. Yash Tandon, Executive Director, South Centre.

Some of questions of interest to developing countries were taken up during the presentations and subsequent discussions, namely: Is the idea of liberalization as the golden bullet to development still valid?, Is the Doha Round simply about technical coefficients and numbers or are there broader development issues at stake? Are the processes of the proposed mini-Ministerial democratic and transparent?

WTO Mini-Ministerial: Doha Collapse because of Failure to Deliver Development

Mini-ministerial meet of 30 countries in Geneva attempting to reach an accord on liberalising markets in agriculture and industrial goods to salvage the Doha trade round collapses on day nine.

The collapse of the Doha talks illustrated a clear lack of political will on the part of the developed countries to deliver on development. From the start, the developed countries were hearing but not actually listening to the development concerns the majority in the WTO have been voicing. This continued through the past week until it became untenable to bridge the differences.

Read the entire commentary available online (in English, French and Spanish) at:
http://www.southcentre.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=664&Itemid=1

International trading regime is much more than the WTO

Ms. Luisa Bernal, Coordinator, Trade for Development Programme, South Centre recently gave a presentation on possible elements of a development oriented trading regime and on NAMA at the Conference on Trade and Development organized by the Forum on Environment and Development in Oslo on 16 and 17 November 2007.

The topic of the meeting was the international trading regime and its implications for developing countries. The presentation made by Ms. Bernal stressed the following points:

• The international trading regime is much more than the WTO given the exponential increase of bilateral and regional agreements. The scope and depth of commitments made in these agreements go beyond the WTO
• The WTO rules represent however the framework for any bilateral and regional agreement
• The current multilateral disciplines were developed during the Uruguay Round in a period when the Washington consensus was unquestioned
• During the Uruguay round, the Special and Differential treatment was seriously undermined.
• The agenda expanded to cover issues usually outside the purview of trade rules: investment related measures, services, intellectual property, etc.
• The Round failed to deliver on issues of interest to developing countries (e.g. agriculture, textile and clothing)
• The Doha Round was seen by developing countries as an opportunity to address the imbalances of the Uruguay Round. There was an inbuilt prioritization of issues in the agenda with agriculture, SDT and implementation issues to be addressed before NAMA and other new issues. However, the agenda has been gradually narrowed down putting on the side many aspects of interest to developing countries. There is a strong focus on market access, particularly in developing countries.

The assessments made about the potential impact of the Doha round on developing countries, based on the proposed modalities, show that the expected benefits for developing countries are very small and unevenly distributed. The poorest countries such as LDCs and Sub-Sahara Africa are expected to realize net losses as a result of the round. The Doha round is deepening the existing framework rather than creating an alternative approach to liberalization.

Commentary: Scenarios in the Doha Round

Luisa Bernal, Head of Trade for Development Programme, South Centre provides a commentary on the various possible scenarios of the WTO Doha Round. This commentary was given at the informal meeting of NGOs organized by South Centre in the Julius Nyere Conference Room on this issue on 27 July 2007. Over 20 NGO representatives participated in this meeting and shared their views.

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