Kenya lambasts WTO over delays

By Edwin Limo

Kenya has protested against the delay in concluding world trade negotiations that began 12 years ago.

In an unflattering statement at the opening of the first plenary session of the Ninth World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Bali, Indonesia, Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs and International Trade Amina Mohamed said members needed to seriously consider the relevance of WTO that seems to be “negotiating forever”.

“Kenya is disappointed that no agreement has been reached either on the Bali package or the post-Bali work programme. We cannot continue negotiating forever, not when scarce resources are dedicated to managing delegations in Geneva even while issues of employment creation, income growth and raising of the living standard of our people remain elusive,” said Ms Mohamed.

She said membership to WTO should be the guarantor of a predictable and transparent global trading environment whose proper functioning is key to achieving economic growth goals. The talks were mooted under the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) 12 years ago.

“The missed deadlines are missed opportunities that were intended to improve the lives of millions of our people,” said Mohamed.

“Our minimum expectation is that we will agree on a concrete post-Bali programme that will help us to continue down the road to concluding the DDA negotiations. This will allow us to re-affirm the creditability of the WTO as an institution governing the rules of international trade.”

Noting that the landscape of trade and development had changed significantly, mostly for the better for Kenya and its neigbours, for example, Mohamed said there was an urgent need for a deeper integration of developing and least developed countries into the multilateral trading system.

She said concluding the DDA negotiations would mean that the development component promised at the Doha Conference has been achieved.

“Following through on our promises is imperative if WTO is to maintain its prestige and standing among our citizens and the business communities that drive trade and economic growth in our countries and across our borders,” she said.

She called for the safeguarding of the gains achieved in the negotiations so far, particularly in Agriculture and Non Agricultural Market Access.

 

(NAMA) and quick conclusion of DDA.

She called for safeguarding of the gains achieved in the negotiations so far particularly in Agriculture and Non Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) and quick conclusion of DDA

On Bali conference, Amina doubted whether it would be possible to tie all the string bearing in mind the 12 years of negotiation. “How can we narrow the wide divergence on trade facilitation to achieve the balanced outcome within the agreement and the other issues in the Bali package?” she wondered.

She singled out agriculture saying, “we will struggle to truly address food security challenges that are directly linked to the livelihoods of many poor people in the developing countries using a temporary solution when we should promote policies that offer predictability and transparency.”

She said farmers in countries with dire food security problems should not be impoverished by food aid which only sustains poverty and emergencies. “This is an item that we can get some real movement on here in Bali and it will have the virtue of directly allowing markets to continue serving the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable,” said Amina.

On development, she said more attention was being paid to the monitoring mechanism instead of the actual mandate on strengthening the special and differential treatment provisions. “Time has come for Ministers to provide guidance rather than negotiating amongst us in less than 4 days, and expect positive results on all the outstanding issues.”

She called for safeguarding of the gains achieved in the negotiations so far particularly in Agriculture and Non Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) and quick conclusion of DDA.