1) Explore the issues at the interface of trade and climate change of concern and interests to African countries;

2) Identify a positive agenda able to contribute to engagement of African countries in the process of negotiations towards the UNFCCC Copenhagen summit in December;

3) Provide a platform for interaction and exchange amongst climate change and trade negotiators; policy-makers; private sector; academia; and civil society.

The dialogue will bring together Geneva-based trade negotiators from Africa; climate change negotiators, policy-makers; climate change and development analysts; civil society and private sector representatives; experts; academics; and IGOs for two days to discuss these issues and identify the policy priorities and future research agendas to address key trade and climate change issues for these countries.

Este panorama, sin embargo, presenta también la posibilidad de abrir un debate sobre futuros escenarios de reestructuración del sector a fin de que éste se posicione de forma más competitiva en la economía mundial. Asimismo, el rol del sector en la creación de un modelo de desarrollo sostenible que incluya objetivos económicos, sociales, y ambientales en Guatemala se vuelve esencial en un debate como éste. El Centro Internacional para el Comercio y el Desarrollo Sostenible (ICTSD por sus siglas en inglés) desarrolló una metodología conocida como “Estrategias de Desarrollo Sostenible Apoyadas en el Comercio (EDSAC)” a fin de vincular los regímenes comerciales con un modelo de desarrollo sostenible a través de políticas económicas, sociales y ambientales.

El ICTSD en conjunto con la Asociación de Investigación y Estudios Sociales (ASIES), el Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales y Económicas (IDIES), y el Instituto de investigación aplicada y promoción del desarrollo local (NITLAPAN) organizaron diálogos nacionales en Guatemala y Nicaragua el 17 y 19 de marzo respectivamente. Los objetivos del diálogo eran: 1) presentar los resultados preliminares de la investigación sobre el sector textil y la confección que ASIES, IDIES, y NITLAPAN en coordinación con ICTSD están llevando a cabo en Guatemala y Nicaragua y de las estrategias de reestructuración propuestas para el sector en ambos países por el consultor, Eduardo Burga; 2) obtener insumos de los actores claves del sector de cara a la segunda fase del proyecto de investigación; 3) generar debate sobre el rol del sector en el desarrollo sostenible en Guatemala y Nicaragua y las posibles implicaciones para las negociaciones comerciales entre Centroamérica y la Unión Europea.

Este panorama, sin embargo, presenta también la posibilidad de abrir un debate sobre futuros escenarios de reestructuración del sector a fin de que éste se posicione de forma más competitiva en la economía mundial. Asimismo, el rol del sector en la creación de un modelo de desarrollo sostenible que incluya objetivos económicos, sociales, y ambientales en Guatemala se vuelve esencial en un debate como éste. El Centro Internacional para el Comercio y el Desarrollo Sostenible (ICTSD por sus siglas en inglés) desarrolló una metodología conocida como “Estrategias de Desarrollo Sostenible Apoyadas en el Comercio (EDSAC)” a fin de vincular los regímenes comerciales con un modelo de desarrollo sostenible a través de políticas económicas, sociales y ambientales.

El ICTSD en conjunto con la Asociación de Investigación y Estudios Sociales (ASIES), el Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales y Económicas (IDIES), y el Instituto de investigación aplicada y promoción del desarrollo local (NITLAPAN) organizaron diálogos nacionales en Guatemala y Nicaragua el 17 y 19 de marzo respectivamente. Los objetivos del diálogo eran: 1) presentar los resultados preliminares de la investigación sobre el sector textil y la confección que ASIES, IDIES, y NITLAPAN en coordinación con ICTSD están llevando a cabo en Guatemala y Nicaragua y de las estrategias de reestructuración propuestas para el sector en ambos países por el consultor, Eduardo Burga; 2) obtener insumos de los actores claves del sector de cara a la segunda fase del proyecto de investigación; 3) generar debate sobre el rol del sector en el desarrollo sostenible en Guatemala y Nicaragua y las posibles implicaciones para las negociaciones comerciales entre Centroamérica y la Unión Europea.

The objective of the roundtable is to deepen the substantive knowledge of policymakers and stakeholders able to influence policy decisions of (i) those services sectors and modes of supply that could act as drivers to growth and sustainable development in Least Developed Countries and (ii) the rules and flanking measures which need to be in place to realise this potential

Three studies, two commissioned by ICTSD and one by QUNO, will be presented and discussed:

Daniel Crosby will present the findings of his study ‘Advancing services export interests of Least Developed Countries: Toward GATS commitments on the temporary movement of natural persons for the supply of low-skilled and semi-skilled services’,
Sabrina Varma will share her perspective on the study ‘Facilitating Temporary labour mobility in African LDC’s: Addressing Mode 4 related Supply-side constraints’
Additionally, David Zafar Ahmed will contribute to the discussions by presenting the study he did jointly with Uri Friedman titled ‘Ensuring Temporariness: Mechanisms to Incentivise return Migration in the Context of GATS Mode 4 and Least Developed Country Interests’

The studies identify and assess the specific sectors and sub-sectors in which LDC’s have a concrete interest in supplying services, especially through the temporary movement of natural persons, an analysis which few developing countries have successfully undertaken with requisite clarity.

To prepare for future resumption of GATS negotiations on the issue of Mode 4, LDC’s would benefit from developing a stronger substantive basis for the preferential market access they seek under the Special Modalities for LDC’s. The output from this exercise will hopefully also contribute to the ongoing negotiations on trade agreements between the developed and least developed countries, including the EPAs.

QUNO - Ensuring Temporariness Mechanisms to Incentivise Return Migration in the Context of GATS Mode 4 and LDC Interests

David Zafar Ahmed’s Presentation

Sabrina Varma’s Presentation

Least Developed Countries (LDCs)[2], Small and Vulnerable Economies (SVEs)[3], and Small Islands Developing States (SIDS)[4] are already highly vulnerable to climate change physical impacts. In addition, they may also be hurt by some of the responses to the challenges of climate change taken by other countries and the international community.

These countries face significant levels of poverty and increased levels of climate-related threats such as droughts, floods, hurricanes, superimposed upon existing vulnerabilities. While these countries represent only a small portion of world trade, they are amongst the most open and trade-dependent in the world. Their key trade sectors such as agriculture, fisheries and tourism will be major impact-takers under climate change, yet many of these countries have already struggled, and achieved only a limited success in diversifying their economies. All these factors make LDCs, SVEs and SIDS particularly vulnerable to emerging climate change challenges.

Given the importance of trade in the economies of LDCs, SVEs and SIDS, trade policy will be an important element to strengthen these countries’ resilience to external shocks, including those arising from climate change physical impacts and policies. Although the interface between trade and climate change has entered the international policy arena, much is yet to be explored in order to deepen our knowledge on the links between these two issues and their future sustainable development implications.

Competitiveness policies[5] can play a major role in creating the supply-side capacity that these countries require in order to adapt to climate change, build resilience, and connect to the world economy on better terms. To strengthen competitiveness and build supply-side capacity in the context of climate change, these countries will most likely need to deal with both mitigation and adaptation aspects. Moreover, for these countries to respond to the urgent adverse effects of climate change, face the potential negative side-effects from the implementation of climate change mitigation activities, and meet the costs of adaptation, additional effective financial resources will be required.

The purpose of this meeting is to explore key interests and concerns of LDCs, SVEs, and SIDS in the context of climate change negotiations and identify crucial issues for a positive agenda for the trade and climate change regimes. Moreover the meeting seeks to explore effective tools to reduce the vulnerability and enhance the resilience of these countries from a competitiveness and adaptation prism. It will discuss the role of trade policy and the international trading system in this context.

The dialogue will bring together Geneva-based trade negotiators from LDCs, SVEs, and SIDS; climate change and development analysts and policy-makers; civil society and private sector representatives; experts; academics; and IGOs for two days to discuss these issues and identify the policy priorities and future research agendas to address key trade and climate change issues for these countries.

Moreover, this meeting has been envisioned as a follow-up to the discussions held on the “Stakeholder Dialogue on Climate Change and Trade: Key Issues for Developing Countries” co-organised in Mauritius on September 2-3, 2008 by ICTSD, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development of Mauritius. Furthermore, it will provide a space to discuss the results from the Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting in St. Lucia held on the 6-8 October, 2008 and prepare for the upcoming XIV Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, in Poznan, Poland, in December 2008.

Seats are limited. We would be very grateful if you could confirm your participation with your name, title/organization, full contact information, by the 15th November 2008, to Paolo Ghisu (Tel.: +41 22 917 8815, E-mail: pghisu@ictsd.ch).

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[1] This dialogue is undertaken under ICTSD’s Global Platform on Linkages between Trade Policies, Climate Change and Sustainable Energy. An initiative supported by DANIDA (Denmark); Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland; the Commonwealth Secretariat; and ICTSD’s institutional funders.

[2] Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are countries which according to the United Nations exhibit the lowest indicators of socioeconomic development, with the lowest Human Development Index ratings of all countries in the world. A country is classified as a Least Developed Country if it meets three criteria based on (1) low-income, (2) human resource weakness and (3) economic vulnerability. [source: www.un.org/special-rep/ohrlls/ldc/ldc%20criteria.htm]

[3] “Many small economies face specific challenges in their participation in world trade, for example they lack economies of scale, have limited natural and human resources and face high transport costs for their exports. Some studies show that a small size may limit an economy’s possibilities to diversify local production and that this, in turn, could make it more difficult for small economies to fully integrate into the multilateral trading system.
The Doha Declaration mandates, in its paragraph 35, the General Council to examine the problems faced by small and vulnerable economies and to make recommendations to improve the integration of such economies into the multilateral trading system. This is to be done, however, without creating a new or separate sub-category of WTO members. Discussions on the mandate have taken place since 2002 in the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD) meeting in dedicated session”. [source: http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min05_e/brief_e/brief12_e.htm]

[4] Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are small island and low-lying coastal countries that share similar sustainable development challenges, including small population, lack of resources, remoteness, susceptibility to natural disasters, excessive dependence on international trade and vulnerability to global developments. In addition, they suffer from lack of economies of scale, high transportation and communication costs, and costly public administration and infrastructure. At present, fifty-one small island developing States and territories are included in the list used by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Theses States and territories often work together through the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). [source: http://www.sidsnet.org/]

[5] Competitiveness Policies for Sustainable Development should be understood as “Strengthening and enhancing the production structures, trade capacity and policy institutions of a country, with a view to improving its ability for positive integration into the global system securing long term stable economic growth, based on producing goods and services that meet the test of international competition under fair market conditions, while expanding the real incomes and real freedoms of their citizens and using their natural resources and the environment in a sustainable manner, preserving their values for the benefit of present and future generations” (Corrales, Sugathan, and Primack 2003).

This high-level conference will bring together various stakeholders active in trade and development, including personalities from governments, international organizations, civil society, academia and the private sector from some 45 developing countries, key OECD members and emerging economies. Together, these participants will interact freely, exchange their experiences and debate concrete and innovative solutions to address specific challenges and opportunities developing countries face in the process of integrating into the world economy.

The Forum is expected to deliver country-specific action plans (AP)/ recommendations, policy principles on trade governance, new ideas and approaches to promote trade as a development tool, a follow-up mechanism, and guidelines for further cooperation among participants. A selected group of key stakeholders will form a constituency for change and together they will work with the results of the conference to advance the Forum’s agenda.

To register, click here for the 1st Conference of the Geneva Trade & Development Forum at the Regent Conference Center in Crans-Montana from 17-20 September 2008. It is encouraged that interested parties register before 15 August.

The Forum is supported by Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

A new study shows that Doha market access promises to least-developed countries (LDCs) would be undermined by barriers to key exports. This groundbreaking report was released in advance of the Mini-Ministerial trade talks held at the WTO headquarters in Geneva during the last two weeks in July.

As trade ministers gathered at the WTO to try and reach a compromise in the global trade talks, one of the main objectives was to help the world’s poorest countries expand their participation in global trade through the successful conclusion of the Doha Development Round. But, promises by industrialised nations to grant unrestricted market access to exports from LDCs as part of a WTO deal would be rendered practically worthless unless they cover all products, according to this new study commissioned by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development. In this paper, it is estimated how LDCs’ access to rich and selected emerging markets would be affected by excluding certain products from liberalisation.

WTO members agreed in 2005 to make it mandatory for developed countries, and optional for developing countries, to give duty- and quota-free market access to all exports from least-developed countries (LDCs). They insisted on being allowed to exclude up to 3% of tariff lines from this so-called ‘Duty Free Quota Free Market Access’ (DFQFMA) initiative, in order to protect sensitive sectors.

This recent study shows that this exception could suffice to cover the small handful of products that LDCs make and export competitively. “In most developed country markets, 3% of tariff lines cover between 90% and 98% of exports from LDCs,” found author David Laborde. “The 3 % exclusion manages to neutralize the initiative almost completely in developed country markets,” he wrote.

Extending duty- and quota-free coverage to all products, however, would minimise the harm caused to LDCs by multilateral tariff cuts under a Doha agreement, the study found. When rich countries lower import barriers to products from China, India, Brazil, and the industrialised world, it inevitably erodes the trade preferences that LDCs enjoy in their markets. But with full duty and quota-free market access for LDCs, these losses are confined to a much smaller number of countries.

The study demonstrates that giving LDCs duty-free market access and simple rules of origin leads to export growth and diversification. As the Director of Programmes at ICTSD, Christophe Bellman, said, “Quite simply, duty-free quota-free access for LDCs works.”

Chair of the TRIPS special sessions, Ambassador Manzoor Ahmad (Pakistan), authored a document (TN/IP/18, available at http://docsonline.wto.org) on negotiations regarding the creation of a multilateral system for registering GIs - product names associated with places and characteristics - for wines and spirits. Ahmad’s report declined to discuss the TRIPS biodiversity amendment or GI extension issues, calling them “beyond the mandate” of the special session he chairs, which is limited only to issues regarding the GI registry for wines and spirits. A second report (WT/GC/W/591 - TN/C/W/50), issued by Director-General Pascal Lamy, covered the two other issues.

Included in Lamy’s paper was reference to an official submission (WT/GC/W/590 - TN/C/W/49) by India last week to the highest-level negotiating body, the Trade Negotiations Committee that operates under the WTO General Council. India submitted the document, which argues in favour of the TRIPS biodiversity amendment, on behalf of a large group of developing countries, including the least developed country group and the Africa Caribbean and Pacific group. The amendment in question concerns the introduction of a mandatory requirement for the disclosure of origin of biological resources and associated traditional knowledge in patent applications.

Meanwhile, two recent ‘non-papers’ reflect the division in negotiations, reasoning either for or against the inclusion of these three IP issues in the agenda of the forthcoming TRIPS Council meeting, scheduled to take place as part of the horizontal negotiations in the overall Doha round.

On the one hand, some WTO Members believe that these issues should be part of the horizontal process in order to have modality texts that reflect ministerial agreement on the key parameters for negotiating a final draft legal text as part of the single undertaking. Yet other Members maintain that no further guidance is necessary since the existing mandate is sufficiently clear and technical work can and should be pursued on this basis.

The TRIPS Council will take place from 17-18 June.

ICTSD reporting; “Reports on WTO IP Negotiations released,” INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY WATCH.

Aid for Trade (AfT) is a potentially vital programme that can help support developing countries’ efforts to bolster trade, foster growth and actively engage in global trading systems and markets. However, effectively designing and implementing such programmes necessitates a clear understanding of the concept, its impacts, successes, challenges, and future. In effort to address these issues from the Caribbean regional perspective, ICTSD and the Organization of American States have organized a unique and much-needed dialogue event on the subject to be held in Kingston, Jamaica from 16-17 June 2008.

Aid for Trade (AfT) packages can help poor countries participate fully in trading systems, meet adjustment needs and build the capacity to produce and trade competitively in global markets. However, in order to do this effectively, developing countries need to fully understand the concept and how it can best be applied. In an effort to help developing nations address this issue, ICTSD and the Organization of American States have partnered to create a unique dialogue event on Aid for Trade, particularly as it relates to the Caribbean region.

The upcoming dialogue, entitled “Symposium on Aid for Trade for the Caribbean: Making it a Reality,” will first examine the aims of AfT, its implications and its context within the Doha Round. The role of institutional actors, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, in facilitating AfT through their respective programmes will also be examined. Likewise, the dialogue will consider the type of government assistance offered by developed countries in AfT programmes.

Once a clear and comprehensive understanding of these programmes has been established, an examination of their successes, failures, strengths and obstacles will enable participants to assess how AfT can improve in the years ahead. This sort of analysis goes hand-in-hand with the global review of AfT recently released by the WTO. Participants to the event will look at this review in conjunction with their own conclusions as to the lessons learned on AfT over recent years, in an effort to lay a strong and effective future framework for the Caribbean region. Through this exercise, the Caribbean’s own strengths and challenges will be analysed with solutions offered in light of the experience of other countries’ and regions’. It is hoped that these exercises and discussions will help the Caribbean to establish a powerful roadmap for future AfT programmes, facilitation and implementation.

The upcoming dialogue is scheduled for 16-17 June 2008 in Kingston, Jamaica. All interested participants should contact event organisers for details.