The Doha Development Agenda (DDA) launched in 2001was supposed to achieve further trade liberalisation while at the same time taking into account the needs of developing countries. Ten years have passed since its inception. No end of the Round is in sight and the possibility of a full failure looms in the background.
This policy note addresses the following questions: Why does the DDA seem to evolve towards failure? What could be done to rescue the Doha Round?
Education plays a crucial role in fostering personal and social development, as well as economic growth. Government policies play a dominant role in this sector. Over time, trade in education services, particularly at the tertiary level, have been growing in importance. Driving factors include a combination of demographic changes, technological developments, national development goals, and governmental reforms to the funding and provision of higher education. The educational market has grown in size with more exporters entering the field to satisfy growing demand worldwide. The education sector today truly operates in a global context with institutions, programmes, and people supplying services across borders at an unprecedented scale.
According to a review of Bolivia’s energy sector conducted last year by the Centre for Socio Eco-Nomic Development (CSEND), the most significant subsidies are centred on the country’s hydrocarbon resources. The research concluded that subsidies are an inefficient way for Bolivians to benefit from the profits of hydrocarbon exploitation.
The Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) is the only legally binding agreement within the WTO covering government procurement (GP) guaranteeing fair and non-discriminatory conditions of international competition in GP. States usually spend around 15-25 % of GDP on GP. The GPA has 42 WTO members and the estimated value of markets open to competition is 1.6 trillion $/Year.
Seminar on GPA and GP
CSEND organized a seminar on GPA on 11th June in Geneva within the context of a graduate course taught by Professor Raymond Saner. Speakers at the seminar included Mr. Nicholas Niggli, Counsellor, Deputy Head of the WTO Division, Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the WTO & EFTA and Chairman, WTO Government Procurement Agreement; Mr. Junior Lodge, Technical Coordinator, WTO Negotiations, CARICOM Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) and Mr. Robert Anderson, Counsellor, expert of GPA at WTO.
Programme, Presentations, Notes of the meeting and Syllabus of course are listed below:
Summary of discussions
Syllabus, course on GPA
Programme
Presentations – Raymond Saner
Presentations – Nicholas Niggli
Presentations – Robert Anderson
Teaching input for Executive Course on Global Health Diplomacy, The Global Health Programme, Graduate Institute, Univ. Geneva,
on 20th June 2012, Geneva. Title of Negotiation Simulation was: Negotiating Tobacco Control: Cross Border Advertisement, Promotion and Sponsorship: A Multi-Stakeholder Negotiation Simulation Exercise. Presentation on postmodern diplomacy and schedule of negotiations simulation are listed below
Trade in Health services is part of the GATS/WTO service agreement. What follows describes health services in the context of offensive and defensive health service interest that countries might have.
This joint panel between CSEND and CUTS offers key insights into how countries can improve their trade policy governance. Both are research and development NGOs and have conducted research, capacity building and networking projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The two organisations will present findings of their recent research on trade policy making processes and role of relevant stakeholders. They will also offer solution sets to participants interested in how trade policy governance can be organised in a more efficient, inclusive and effective manner.
This paper focuses on the function of Inter-ministerial Policy Coordination (IMPC) and its critical role in governance. Following a definitional section, the authors give an overview of public sector governance in Eastern & Central Europe and Central Asia and then discuss the application of governance principles to Inter-ministerial Policy Coordination in these regions. They conclude with specific examples from the Republic of Macedonia and Central_Asia.
With the successful 2014 legislative and presidential elections well in the rearview mirror, Indonesia’s new government can now tackle issues of governance, a key one being effective and efficient policy coordination and consultation. Effective interministerial policy coordination and policy consultation (PCC) can help eliminate policy programs that duplicate actions and regulations. PCC is a necessary element to deal with cross-cutting issues of policy-making in developing countries including Indonesia. Deficient policy coordination and policy consultation decreases a country’s ability to ensure the sustained development of its economy and society, and can handicap its success in reaching beneficial agreements through bilateral and multilateral negotiations.
This essay discusses the current situation of Indonesia’s trade policy coordination and policy consultation, and the accompanying problems. The authors argue that there is a transparency issue due to an unclear reporting and authority mechanism under the current system. This essay also provides an alternative option to the current Indonesian governance structure by exploring the multi-stakeholder policy process of Switzerland’s financial policy sector. The Swiss example gives a detailed overview of how the Swiss government has organized mechanisms of interministerial policy coordination and consultation with external stakeholders, in order to cope with the many external and internal changes of the financial sector, which is of great importance to the Swiss economy.
Inclusion of Aid for Trade in Trade Policy Reviews: Strengthening Value of Development Instruments for LDCs (and developing countries) by Raymond Saner, Lichia Yiu and Mario Filadoro
TPRs can play a central role in mainstreaming trade into national development strategies. TPRs could be used to measure trade capacity gains of countries, a benefit from Aid for Trade (AfT) over time. To do so, it is important that TPRs become standardised in its methodology and reporting and the information pertaining to the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) and other AfT investment be documented in the TPRs.
www.ecdpm.org/GREAT ; GREAT Insights Volume 1 | Issue 6 | August 2012