A high-level workshop opens today in Geneva aimed at helping some 40 capital-based senior trade officials, trade negotiators, academics, and others from 16 African countries participate effectively in the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha negotiations. The workshop, to be held at the Palais des Nations, will run through Wednesday, 26 July.
Participants are from Benin, Burkina Faso, Botswana, Cameroon, Côte d´Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Senegal, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia. The workshop is being held under the Joint Integrated Technical Assistance Programme to Selected Least Developed and Other African Countries (JITAP). Ambassadors and representatives from Permanent Missions of the JITAP beneficiary countries in Geneva; and resource persons from UNCTAD, the WTO, and the International Trade Centre (ITC) will also be attending.
Through the JITAP programme, UNCTAD, WTO and ITC jointly assist selected African countries in strengthening their human, institutional and entrepreneurial capacities for better integration into the multilateral trading system.One of the key objectives of the second phase of JITAP (JITAP II) is to develop the institutional capacity of beneficiary countries to participate effectively in WTO negotiations; implement WTO agreements, and formulate related trade policy through Inter-institutional Committees (IICs) in each country, employing IICs as the key institutions for organizing national stakeholder discussions and decision-making on the multilateral trading system.
The workshop will address the state of play in the post-Hong Kong phase of WTO Doha negotiations and key issues facing JITAP beneficiary countries which IICs could help address. The meeting will feature work sessions on key issues, including agriculture, industrial tariffs, services, trade facilitation, and development Issues. It is expected that participants will share information and contribute to national preparatory and consultative processes for informing and steering national participation in the Doha negotiations.
The workshop will be opened by Lakshmi Puri, Director of UNCTAD´s Division of International Trade in Goods and Services, and Commodities.
