Discussion on Poverty and The WTO: Impacts of the Doha Development Agenda
01 Feb '06
10 min read
To mark the publication of a new book, Poverty and the WTO, edited by Thomas Hertel and Alan Winters, this meeting examined the likely impact of trade liberalisation and the Doha Round on individual countries, focusing on poverty.
To capture the long-term gain, the case for aid-for-trade is clear: support vulnerable countries during the initial risk period so that they don't miss the opportunity for sizeable gains in the future.
In a presentation was L Alan Winters, Director of the Development Research Group, The World Bank with eminent discussants like Sheila Page, Senior Research Associate, International Economic Development Group, ODI;
Sherman Robinson, Professor of Economics, University of Sussex.
Dirk Willem te Velde, Research Fellow, International Economic Development Group, ODI chaired the meeting.
The chair opened the meeting saying that it would discuss the book Poverty and the WTO: Impacts of the Doha Development Agenda, edited by Thomas Hertel and Alan Winters. He said that it was fortunate that this meeting was being held for a number of reasons:
To discuss modelling approaches underlying estimates of the effects of trade
To discuss the effects of the Doha round, and why the estimates have been changing over time
To discuss what the book means for developing country negotiators, e.g in terms of the effects of agriculture negotiations
1. Alan Winters spoke in a personal capacity at this meeting. He began his presentation by stating that the motivation for the study was the World Bank's (WB) objective to reduce poverty, focused on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The WB believes that increased trade has the potential to create resources to meet the MDGs. It believed that negotiations on agriculture are likely to have the most impact on poverty, as it is the sector in which most poor people are engaged. Winters stressed that negotiations at the global level must be translated into results at the household level if we are to understand their impact on poverty on the ground. Throughout the presentation the potential impacts of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) were compared with full liberalisation (an ideal).
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