It
is a great pleasure to have this opportunity to address the UNDP
Executive Board 2002. UNDP and the other agencies represented here
today are important partners for the WTO. In many areas, we already
work closely together. Our challenge is to improve on this partnership
to better assist countries to participate successfully in the
multilateral trading system. At Doha last year, Ministers gave the WTO
an important new negotiating mandate. The Doha Development Agenda
calls for a far-reaching set of negotiations to be completed within 3
years. With this Agenda, Members have placed development issues and
the interests of our poorer members at the heart of our work. One key
to success will thus be technical assistance and capacity building ?
helping poorer members to integrate into the trading system and to
participate fully in the negotiations.
Members
have since acted decisively and I would like to highlight some key
aspects of our Doha Development Agenda-related technical assistance
work programme:
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Important
work is underway in cooperation with the OECD, on the creation of
a Doha Development Agenda Trade-Related Technical Assistance and
Capacity Building Database (DDADB). I have invited donors,
agencies, regional banks and other countries to provide
information on their respective activities by 31 July 2002. This
information will be verified, consolidated and uploaded to the
database, which will provide an inventory of all existing
trade-related technical assistance. This inventory will be
accessible on-line via the Internet by October. May I urge you to
respond positively to this request for information. Once
established, the inventory will help us to improve coordination
and increase our efficiency ;
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A
number of Regional Ministerial Trade Conferences, particularly
focused on mainstreaming trade into national development plans and
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), has been organised. The
first was organized for the Latin American and Caribbean region by
the Inter-American Development Bank with the collaboration of the
WTO, in June last year. Joint meetings between trade and finance
ministers, in one single forum, have proved to be essential in
enhancing mutual understanding, effectively implementing WTO
Agreements and ensuring that trade works for development;
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Ministerial
Trade Conferences were recently held for Central Asian and
Caucasus countries, and for Central and South East Europe. Never
before has the WTO Secretariat organised high-level meetings of
this kind in these regions. Economies in transition face
particular challenges in integrating into the multilateral trading
system. The conference provided a unique opportunity for these
countries to meet and exchange views on technical assistance
priorities, and to provide guidance to the WTO Secretariat and
other agencies.
We
have also expanded our training activities, which are complementary to
WTO technical assistance. In this regard, I should highlight two
important WTO training initiatives. One relates to the Doha
Development Agenda-related training of trade negotiators from
developing countries and economies in transition. A total of 11 of
such courses have been designed. Implementation is underway. The first
of these two-week courses was organized in June in collaboration with
the Organization of American States and Georgetown University in
Washington for the benefit of Latin American and Caribbean countries.
Additional courses of this kind will be organized in the second
semester of 2003 for Africa, Arab countries and Central and Eastern
Europe respectively.
The
second training initiative is one to which I attach great importance.
The objective is to expand the prestigious three-month trade policy
courses, delivered in Geneva by the WTO Training Institute, into the
regions. The concept is a simple one. The WTO Training Institute will
help universities in developing countries establish and deliver trade
policy courses, similar to those conducted in Geneva, to government
officials locally. The first of these three-month courses will be held
in Africa this July at the University of Nairobi in Kenya for
English-speaking African countries, and at the University of
Casablanca in Morocco for French-speaking African countries. It is
essential that Ministers of developing, least-developed and transition
economy countries attend the next Ministerial Conference accompanied
by staff competent and proficient in WTO matters. These training
courses will help build the requisite human resources of developing
countries. I am confident this idea will travel. Other countries have
already demonstrated considerable interest in setting up similar
courses in their leading universities. I have received expressions of
interest from the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific.
All
of you are familiar with the Integrated Framework for Trade-Related
Technical Assistance for the Least-Developed Countries (LDCs). I am
convinced that we are on the right track. The on-going pilot-project
countries range from satisfactory to very good, witness the
outstanding success in Cambodia, and the decent progress being made in
Mauritania. However, I need to underscore that the task of
following-up on the Diagnostic Trade Integration Studies is a major
challenge. Lead donor countries of the DAC/OECD, and agencies in a
position to do so now need to respond with speed and urgency. With
your support we can achieve even more progress on the IF.
Let
me stress that much remains to be done to consolidate our
collaboration and to bring it to new levels. Agencies and donors also
need to focus assistance to other developing countries - particularly
the low income economies - as well as economies in transition, who
also present enormous challenges and opportunities. The WTO
Secretariat is neither the only nor the major instrument available in
the international community for trade-related technical assistance and
capacity building. Large scope for coordinated work exists. Time is
short and resources limited, we need to ensure that we continually
strive to improve on past efforts.
I
would like to conclude with a reminder of why we are making all these
efforts. What's at stake in the Doha Development Agenda negotiations?
There is no need to dwell on this in such distinguished and
experienced company, but I will give some examples :
Abolishing
all trade barriers could boost global income by $US2.8 trillion
and lift 320 million people out of poverty by 2015.
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In
development terms, the elimination of all tariff and non-tariff
barriers could result in gains for developing countries in the
order of $182 billion in the services sector, $162 billion in
manufactures and $32 billion in agriculture.
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All
seven of the UN Millennium Development goals ?in health,
education, poverty, etc ?would require US $54 billion annually,
?just one third the estimate of developing country gains from
trade liberalisation.
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For
those concerned about the poor in developed countries, in US, EU
and Japan for example, studies show that import tariffs are lowest
on industrial supplies and luxury goods marketed to wealthy and
middle class families and highest on cheaper goods that poor
families buy.
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For
those concerned about the world's poorest countries, studies show
the extent to which trade barriers and tariffs of rich countries
work against them. Let me share one example from a book I read
recently. Mongolians and Norwegians both paid the US about $23
million in tariffs last year. But Mongolia exported $143 million
and Norway $5.2 billion, or 40 times as much. In effect,
Mongolians paid 16 cents to sell the US a dollar's worth of
sweaters and suits, while the Norwegians paid half a cent for
every dollar's worth of gourmet smoke salmon, jet engine parts and
North Sea crude.
The
Doha Development Agenda will help define international trading
relations and development for the first part of this new century.
Trade is an important component of the New Partnership for Africa's
Development (NEPAD) and much of our work will fold neatly into its
priorities. The Doha Development Agenda and trade will also play an
important role in the upcoming Johannesburg World Summit on
Sustainable Development. Our job is to help countries realise the
enormous benefits offered by the Doha Development Agenda.
