World Trade Organization (WTO)
1. What decisions or new strategies has the governing body of your organization taken to guide the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs? Please provide a brief summary below, including the overarching vision of your governing body for the Decade of Action on the SDGs.
The General Council is the WTO’s highest-level decision-making body in Geneva, meeting regularly to carry out the functions of the WTO. It has representatives, usually ambassadors or equivalent, from all member governments and has the authority to act on behalf of the ministerial conference which only meets about every two years.
A number of decisions taken at the WTO in recent years illustrates how the trading system can enhance the benefits of globalization and help meet the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by tackling priority trade issues. The Trade Facilitation Agreement, the expansion of the Information Technology Agreement, the amendment of the TRIPS (Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement easing access to medicines, and the agreement to abolish agricultural export subsidies will all deliver important benefits. Moreover, the different approaches represented by these agreements show that the multilateral trading system is adaptable and dynamic in its response to emerging challenges.
The WTO is currently negotiating several issues of key importance to the attainment of the 2030 SDGs. Foremost among these is the WTO negotiation on fisheries subsidies which are specifically mentioned in target 14.6. These negotiations aim to prohibit certain forms of fisheries subsidies which contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, and eliminate subsidies that contribute to IUU fishing, and refrain from introducing new such subsidies, recognizing that appropriate and effective special and differential treatment for developing and least developed countries.
Furthermore, WTO Members in the Council for Trade in Services in Special Session are debating market access issues relating to environmental services. The most recent proposal submitted in September 2019 highlights the role of environmental services in helping governments address climate change and achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, as removing barriers to trade in environmental services may reduce the costs of implementing environmental policies and help governments achieve environmental objectives.
WTO members are also making important steps toward gender equality in line with goal 5 on gender equality. 127 Members and Observers agreed the Joint Declaration on Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment at Buenos Aires in 2017. The declaration’s proponents represent 75% of world trade. The Declaration is a vital element in the WTO's work to make trade more inclusive. It provides guidance from the Members to the WTO for the way forward. It aims to promote women’s economic empowerment and tackle barriers that hamper their participation in global trade. To achieve this, it provides a platform to better understand the links between trade and women's empowerment.
Members have also begun to enact more gender responsive trade policy and aid-for-trade initiatives. Between 2014-2018, almost half of the WTO membership has implemented trade policies in support of women.[1] During this period, most (about 70%) of the WTO Members[2] have integrated women's empowerment in their national or regional trade strategy to mostly enhance women’s participation into their workforce. Some have explicitly acknowledged that closing the gender gap is especially important because of its correlation with per capita income, growth, development and poverty reduction. Some strategies also aim at promoting female employment and access to male dominated economic sectors. A few trade strategies also mention that mainstreaming gender is a primary objective. While most members establish wide and general gender objectives in their trade policies, some can also be very specific, depending on the economic situation of the country. WTO Members have focused their policy activity to three main areas or sectors: Financial and non-financial incentives to the private sector and women owned/led Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs); agriculture and fishery; government procurement Other areas of policy making in support of women' empowerment are: support to business and MSMEs; licensing procedures and requirements; Services; Institutions and decision making; Standards and technical regulations; Aid for Trade; bilateral free trade agreements; and data collection. Overall, WTO members set up about 30 different types of trade policies were set up in 12 sectors or topics.
In the last 12 years, donors and partner countries have gradually and increasingly integrated gender into their Aid for Trade objectives. Today, women's economic empowerment is equally high on both donors and partner countries agenda: 84% of donors' aid-for-trade strategy and 85% of partner countries national or regional development strategies seek to promote women's economic empowerment.
2. At the secretariat level, what steps has your organization taken (or will it take) in the follow-up to the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs? Please specify actions, including but not limited to the following areas:
The WTO Secretariat, with offices only in Geneva, has 625 regular staff and is headed by a Director-General. Since decisions are taken by Members only, the Secretariat has no decision-making powers. Its main duties are to supply technical and professional support for the various councils and committees, to provide technical assistance for developing countries, to monitor and analyse developments in world trade, to provide information to the public and the media and to organize the ministerial conferences. The Secretariat also provides some forms of legal assistance in the dispute settlement process and advises governments wishing to become Members of the WTO.
Beyond other technical assistance and development work detailed below, the Secretariat has taken new steps to integrate trade and gender into work. This includes taking steps to ensure gender diversity in all aspects of WTO’s work. The WTO is moving towards greater gender balance. Women represent approximately 54% of staff in the WTO. In roles classified as 'professional', however, women account for 45% of positions. But this share is rising — it was 31% in 1995 and 42% in 2014. In April 2018, the WTO adopted a new policy on “Right to Work in an Environment free from Discrimination, Harassment and Abuse of Authority” which includes provisions against sexual harassment. Derived from this policy, the WTO launched a mandatory e-learning programme for all staff called “Respect and Harmony @ WTO”, which aims to build a more harmonious, harassment-free and inclusive workplace by creating awareness on appropriate conduct.
3. What normative, analytical, technical assistance or capacity building activities is your organization providing to support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs? Please provide a brief account of the activities you have organized or intend to undertake, including but not limited to the following areas:
The WTO also has two dedicated routes for capacity building in member states. First of these is the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF). The EIF is the only multilateral partnership dedicated exclusively to assisting least developed countries (LDCs) in their use of trade as an engine for growth, sustainable development and poverty reduction. The EIF partnership of 51 countries, 24 donors and eight partner agencies works closely with governments, development organizations, civil society and academia. The partnership leverages collective know-how, outreach and experience to tackle the world’s most pressing trade-for-development issues. UN Sustainable Development Goal 8a specifically recognizes the role of the EIF in increasing Aid for Trade support for least developed countries. By working to promote a trade agenda conducive to sustainable growth and the reduction of poverty through appropriate national policies and institutional frameworks, the EIF's work with LDCs supports the achievement of a wide variety of SDGs.
The second is the WTO’s technical assistance (TA) programme. Technical assistance remains an important component of the WTO’s work. The main purpose of the Secretariat's TA programmes is to enhance the human and institutional capacities of beneficiaries to take full advantage of the rules-based Multilateral Trading System, deal with the emerging challenges and enforce their rights and obligations. The WTO TA aims to achieve four key results:
a. Government officials are implementing WTO Agreements and fully realising Members' rights and obligations;
b. Acceding governments are participating in accession negotiations;
c. Academic institutions and other stakeholders are analysing WTO issues and reaching out to policy makers;
d. Non-governmental stakeholders and legislators are aware of and knowledgeable about WTO work and issues.
On average the WTO trains approximately 20,000 participants annually through a mixture of face-to-face and online courses held in Geneva and throughout the world at national, regional or global level.
4. The high-level political forum (HLPF) is the central platform for the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. Has your organization participated in or supported the work of the HLPF? If yes, please specify your involvement in the following areas:
The WTO has provided written inputs for each of the HLPF's that have been held since 2016, these inputs have been published in the website of the HLPF. For the 2019 HLPF, WTO, together with UNCTAD and ITC, co-organized a side event on Trade's contribution to the Agenda 2030. Plans for the 2020 HLPF remain to be seen due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
WTO also participates and contributes to the work of the UN HLPF Task Team.
6. How has your organization engaged with stakeholder groups, both in supporting implementation at the country, regional and global levels, and within your own organization? If yes, please provide main highlights, including any lessons learned. If your organization has established any multi-stakeholder partnerships to support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs, please describe them and how their performances are being monitored and reviewed.
The Public Forum is the WTO’s largest annual outreach event, which provides a platform for participants to discuss the latest developments in world trade and to propose ways of enhancing the multilateral trading system. The event regularly attracts over 1,500 representatives from civil society, academia, business, the media, governments, parliamentarians and inter-governmental organizations.
The 2019 Public Forum focussed on the theme “Trading Forward: Adapting to a Changing World”. Featuring over 100 session, the 2019 forum focussed on three sub-themes: services — the next trade frontier; the next generation — what do Millennials & Gen Z want to see from global trade; and the next chapter of the WTO — strengthening the trading system. The trading landscape is increasingly characterized by changes in technology, production methods, employment patterns, demand patterns, demographics, and climate, to name a few. Last year's WTO Public Forum considered how the changes influencing the trading system and global trade will evolve over the coming decades, and considered how trade, and the trading system can adapt to these changes.
Public Forum 2020 will run from Tuesday 29th September to Friday 2nd October. The theme will be ‘Building on 25 Years of the WTO’.
In addition to the Public Forum outlined in the previous section, the WTO also organizes the Global Aid for Trade Review every other year. The 2019 Global Review of Aid for Trade focused on the theme of "Supporting Economic Diversification and Empowerment for Inclusive, Sustainable Development Through Aid for Trade", and was held at the WTO in Geneva from 3 to 5 July 2019. The Global Review is influential in galvanizing support and directing strategies to help developing countries derive the maximum development benefit from trade with important implications for a wide range of goals including 1 (No Poverty), 2 (Zero Hunger), 5 (Gender Equality), 10 (Reduced Inequality), 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), and 17 (Partnerships to Achieve the Goal).
7. Has your organization organized any conferences, forums or events designed to facilitate exchange of experience, peer and mutual learning in connection with the SDGs? If yes, please provide a brief summary, below and include lessons learned and gaps identified based on the outcomes of these events. Please also include any events you want to organize in the coming years.
The M&E exercise further seeks to develop analysis on how trade can contribute to economic diversification and empowerment, with a focus on eliminating extreme poverty, particularly through the effective participation of women and youth. The exercise also analyzes how Aid for Trade can contribute to that objective by addressing supply-side capacity and trade-related infrastructure constraints, including for MSMEs, particularly those in rural areas.
To collect this information, self-assessment questionnaires were widely circulated to donors (bilateral and multilateral agencies), regional economic communities/transport corridors, South-South partners and developing and least-developed countries.
Responses to the questionnaires and information provided in the case stories were compiled and analyzed in a joint publication by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO): “Aid for Trade at a Glance 2019: Supporting Economic Diversification and Empowerment for Inclusive, Sustainable Development Through Aid for Trade". The report also featured contributions from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the United Nations Development Programme, the International Trade Centre, the Enhanced Integrated Framework and the World Bank Group. The publication was launched and discussed at the 2019 Global Review of Aid for Trade at the World Trade Organization in Geneva.
8. Is there any other information you would like to share, including annual reports of your organization and any impact assessment or evaluation reports? If yes, please use the space below and attach the document(s). Please also use this space to provide any other information, comments or remarks you deem necessary.
The WTO also published the second biennial Global Value Chain Development Report in 2019. While the first report revealed the changing nature of international trade when analyzed in terms of global value chains (GVCs) and value-added trade the 2019 report focussed on the role of technology in reshaping GVCs. GVCs have been critical for development and jobs in many countries, but technological advances are further transforming the way trade works. The report titled "Technological Innovation, Supply Chain Trade and Workers in a Globalized World" took stock of current trends in GVCs and examined how recent developments such as robotics, big data and the internet of things may impact workers around the world. The report was co-published by The World Bank Group, The World Trade Organization (WTO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO) and the Research Center of Global Value Chains of the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE).
The WTO also published a new paper on "Trade and Poverty Reduction: New Evidence of Impacts in Developing Countries". While the WTO recognizes that global trade has contributed strongly to poverty reduction around the world, there remain challenges in foregrounding pro-poor growth in international trade. This publication presents eight case studies to reveal how trade can help to reduce poverty in developing countries. The publication focuses on four constraints faced by the extremely poor – namely that they tend to live in rural areas, work in the informal sector, live in fragile and conflict-affected regions and face gender inequality. The case studies underline the challenges the extremely poor face and identify ways to overcome them, including through the adoption of policies that maximize the contribution of trade to poverty reduction. The studies also highlight the ongoing gaps in data and research that constrain policymaking. The publication is a follow-up from the 2015 “The Role of Trade in Ending Poverty”, co-published by the WTO and the World Bank.
9. In your view, what should strategic directions look like for the UN system in support of the 2030 Agenda and SDGs in the Decade of Action? What key elements should they include and what major challenges should they address?
In order to successfully attain the 2030 SDGs and generate pro-poor economic growth it is necessary for UN system organisations and other international organisations to leverage multilateralism. Multilateralism is being increasingly challenged and this is affecting the work of many international organizations. In the case of trade and the WTO there has been a marked acceleration of trade restrictive measures, which coupled with questions on the functioning of the WTO's Dispute Settlement Mechanism have prompted a discussion on reforms to the multilateral trading system. In the face of these challenges it is crucial that any strategic plan include a response to threats to multilateralism. This response should prioritize strengthening global cooperation which ultimately is in the interest of all and remains a crucial element in the attainment of the 2030 Agenda.
Where applicable, we would also suggest that UN system organisations incorporate the WTO's list of strategies for mainstreaming trade. Trade liberalisation allows countries to use existing resources more efficiently as it allows each country to specialize in the production of the goods and services it can produce more competitively, increasing economic growth. Increased growth increases the amount of resources available to implement and meet other development targets. Trade also contributes directly to poverty reduction by opening new employment opportunities and reducing the prices of goods and services for poor consumers, including foodstuffs.
Open global trade has had very positive effects for the economic and development of several developing countries. WTO and other international organizations - UNCTAD, ITC, and others – continue their efforts continue to build capacity in developing countries to take full advantage of the benefits that trade can bring. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic these efforts, and the developmental gains of recent years, are jeopardized. Developing countries are even more vulnerable to the effects of the pandemic as they have weaker health and social safety nets, have a more difficult time to mobilize resources to fight the pandemic and containment measures have greater economic impact in the population due to a larger proportion of them working in the informal sector.
The pandemic presents challenges unprecedented in the history of the multilateral trading system. They call for an unprecedented level of international cooperation. Developing countries will benefit more from a multilaterally coordinated response to the crisis.
During the 2008-09 financial crisis, the WTO played a valuable role in helping governments avoid the kinds of protectionism seen in the 1930s. Maintaining broadly open flows of trade and investment would, along with fiscal and monetary policy, bolster prospects for a strong economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. A strong, sustained and socially inclusive recovery will be required to prevent the achievement of the 2030 Agenda from getting derailed by the pandemic and its economic aftermath. Keeping markets open and predictable, as well as fostering a more generally favourable business environment, will be critical to spur the renewed investment that is needed for a swift recovery to happen. Countries and IGOs must work together; this will result in a much faster recovery than if each country acts alone. And the multilateral system and institutions provide a framework for this to happen, as they were designed to respond to complex, multi-faceted, global emergencies such as the one brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
10. Please suggest one or two endeavours or initiatives that the UN system organizations could undertake together to support the implementation of the SDGs between now and 2030.
We would suggest the use of both biennial qualitative and quantitative reviews and targeted large scale monitoring and evaluation (M&E) exercises that incorporate multi-level stakeholders such as donors (bilateral and multilateral agencies), regional economic communities/transport corridors, South-South partners and developing and least-developed countries. These exercises can further develop analyses on how specific areas of development or aid contribute to social and economic empowerment and diversification, and how trade can support these efforts.
[1] WTO Staff Working Paper 2019: Trade Policies Supporting Women's Economic Empowerment: Trends in WTO Members”, Anoush der Boghossian. https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/reser_e/ersd201907_e.htm
[2] Under trade policy review