A "serious effort" to incorporate views of civil society, and momentum towards substantive improvements in trade opportunities for the world´s poorest countries, are among the main goals cited at a press conference held one day in advance of the opening of the tenth session of the UN Conference on Trade and Development. UNCTAD X is taking place in Bangkok, 12-19 February.
Just as any society is best judged by how it treats its weakest members, so the international community is accountable for its regard for the world´s less developed countries, UNCTAD Secretary-General Rubens Ricupero said at the 11 February briefing in Bangkok. "Solidarity" would be the keynote of UNCTAD X, he indicated, as would striving for coherence in policy-making at the domestic and international levels.
Backing up this assessment, Thai Deputy Prime Minister Supachai Panitchpakdi -- designated to head the World Trade Organization as of 2002 -- said that the WTO Singapore ministerial conference (held in 1997) pledged to make the needs of the least developed countries (LDCs) a priority, but that the results have been limited since then to only a few high-level meetings.
"It is time to make that mandate operational", Dr. Supachai told the press, adding that he hoped the Bangkok conference would generate enough support to obtain agreement on across-the-board LDC access to world markets free of tariffs or trade quotas.
Both Mr. Ricupero and Dr. Supachai met earlier in the week with representatives of more than 100 non-governmental organizations, part of the NGO contingent participating in Bangkok events. Dr. Supachai said that a "serious effort" must be made to integrate civil society into the UNCTAD X process and that both leaders would be meeting with them again before the close of the conference. Mr. Ricupero said that UNCTAD has traditionally worked closely with NGOs, and that "more regular and more frequent" consultations would be held with NGOs in the future.
A resumption of a global round of trade talks -- which were deadlocked at the WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle last December -- will depend to a large extent on taking into account the views of civil society as well as of poor and developing countries, both speakers indicated.
The challenge remains to translate the concept of a "development round" into concrete commitments, Mr. Ricupero said. UNCTAD X should help.
"In recent months in particular, WTO Director-General, Mike Moore has been trying to make a case for the full integration of developing countries as a necessary condition for a global round", Dr. Supachai said, adding that, "UNCTAD was the first, and long before the WTO" came into existence. UNCTAD therefore had a key role to play in helping the developing world to benefit from globalization.
Mr. Ricupero said that the benefits of globalization have not reached far enough.
"What we need among developing world countries is not eight or nine ´success stories´, but 130 or 140 such successes", he said.
