The second session of this multi-year expert meeting is being held in accordance with the decision taken at the forty-fourth executive session of the Trade and Development Board on 10 July 2008.
The objective of the meeting is to assist developing countries, especially African countries, least developed countries (LDCs) and countries with special needs, in accordance with the Accra Accord, as well as countries with economies in transition, in establishing regulatory and institutional frameworks and cooperative mechanisms to support the strengthening of their domestic services capacity and its efficiency, competitiveness and export capacity.
According to the decision of the Board, this session of the multi-year expert meeting is to address:
- Trends and salient features of regulatory and institutional frameworks for infrastructure services (energy, financial, telecommunications, transport, and water services), development and trade.
- The efficiency and effectiveness of these regulatory and institutional frameworks and their interaction with supply capacities, non-trade-related objectives including universal access policies, and trade liberalization.
- The exchange of experiences and best practices for building human capital and institutional and regulatory frameworks based on sectoral and modal (including mode 4) case studies and policy reviews.
- Cooperative mechanisms for institutional and regulatory frameworks, including public-private, South-South and North-South cooperation.
- Trade agreements, regulatory and institutional frameworks, and regulatory barriers to exports.
The purpose of this meeting is to bring together experts and practitioners from governments, sector regulators and competition authorities, services policymakers, trade negotiators, research institutions, civil society and the private sector to address the development implications of regulatory and institutional frameworks in infrastructure services sectors, and to identify and clarify the key issues to be further analysed to enhance the capacity of developing countries to benefit from services development and trade.
The outcome of this expert meeting will be used as input for the final session of the multi-year expert meeting, with a view to formulating practical options and actionable outcomes in line with paragraph 207 of the Accra Accord, including through the final session, which is expected to assess the impact of regulatory and institutional frameworks for infrastructure services, development and trade, and to identify practical solutions, options, capacity-building programmes, and indicative guidelines/checklists of best practices for policymakers and regulators.
