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Trade Policy should be Translated into Action Plans
Geneva, 19 July 2010

This was stated by Anthony Mothae Maruping, ambassador of Lesotho to the WTO while participating in a Book Vernissage organized by CUTS Geneva Resource Centre (CUTS GRC) and Centre for Socio-Eco-Nomic Development (CSEND) in Geneva, Switzerland on 19 July 2010. The two organisations presented the main lessons of their publications that researched on inter-ministerial coordination and multi-stakeholder consultation for trade policy.

Several other participants from many developing countries facing development challenges and intergovernmental organizations like UNCTAD addressing those challenges commented on the need to effectively implement the coordination and consultation mechanisms in many developing countries that currently exist on paper only, and to take forward the empirical analysis to the stages of policy implementation and impact assessment.

In his welcome address, Darius Kurek, Counsellor, Trade and Development in the Mission of Switzerland to the WTO, stated that the research by CSEND and CUTS could serve as a platform for further empirical work to improve trade performance to achieve developmental goals.

The discussion brought out the relevance and utility of work by CSEND and CUTS to improve the effectiveness of the efforts of developing countries to mainstream trade into their national development policies, including through the Aid for Trade initiative for developing countries and the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) – a special initiative to assist Least Developed Countries, take advantage of international trading opportunities.

The event was held just after the Aid for Trade Workshop organized by the WTO to assess the progress on monitoring and evaluation of Aid for Trade initiatives, and before the meeting of the WTO Committee on Trade and Development.

“Effective inter-ministerial coordination and inclusive stakeholder consultation should be integral to trade policy initiation, formulation, implementation, evaluation, and monitoring” stated Dr. LichiaYiu-Saner, President of CSEND, while summarizing the two presentations.

For further details, contact geneva@cuts.org