The ‘Doha Mandate’
The 13th ministerial meeting of UNCTAD concluded last week in Doha, Qatar. This meeting was the first major UN ministerial meeting focused on trade and development since the 2008-2009 economic and financial crisis.
At the end of the meeting, the ‘Doha Mandate’ setting out the conclusions agreed at the meeting on policy analysis and the role of the UNCTAD on the overall theme of the meeting – ‘Development Centred Globalisation: Towards Inclusive and Sustainable Growth and Development’ – was adopted.
These included enhancing and enabling the economic environment to support inclusive development; strengthening all forms of cooperation and partnership for trade and development; addressing persistent and emerging development challenges and their implications for trade and development; promoting trade, investment, entrepreneurship and related investment policies to foster economic growth and development.
As the global economy still remained ‘fragile’ since the crisis, the Mandate called for financial flows focused towards supporting inclusive and sustainable development and noted that the ripple effects of the crisis had impacted, among other things, efforts to ensure food security, combat climate change and stabilise energy and other commodity prices.
“Development-centred globalisation sets the stage for inclusive growth and development and contributes towards reducing poverty and creating jobs,” the Mandate states, adding that development strategies should be inclusive and designed to meet human needs.
In addition, the role of the Millennium Development Goals and other internationally agreed development targets were still instrumental to achieving those needs by 2015. Since those ends were closely interconnected, development strategies should be based on an integrated and holistic approach, if the desired policy options were to emerge. The Mandate strongly urged states to refrain from enforcing protectionist measures as protectionism could be a risk during ‘fragile’ times.
With reference to the role of UNCTAD in achieving development-centred globalisation, the Mandate reiterates that it remains the UN focal point for the integrated treatment of trade and development, as well as related issues in the areas of finance, technology, investment and sustainable development.
UNCTAD should, through the three pillars of its mandate — consensus-building, policy-oriented analysis and technical cooperation — continue to deliver meaningful results, within available resources, while enhancing synergies and promoting collaboration with the efforts of other international organisations.
The Mandate called for UNCTAD to contribute to global efforts to transition towards a green economy; continue to monitor and assess the evolution of the international trading system and its trends from a development perspective; and continue to support the specific needs of least developed countries, small island developing states, middle-income countries and those with economies in transition.
UNCTAD was also requested to continue its work on commodities so as to help those countries achieve strengthened and more sustainable agricultural production, food security and export capacity, while taking into account the needs of small farmers as well as the empowerment of women and youth.
At a time when developing countries assisted by UNCTAD are becoming global economic leaders, UNCTAD’s role becomes all the more important. As the Secretary General stated in his concluding remarks, UNCTAD is now being increasingly consulted on varied subjects such as monetary policy, generation of employment, etc., while continuing to be the UN focal point on trade issues, commodities and technology related to development.
(Manel de Silva holds an Honours Degree in Political Science from the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya and has engaged in professional training in Commercial Diplomacy at ITC and GATT. She has served as a trade diplomat in several Sri Lankan Missions overseas and was the first female Head of the Department of Commerce as Director General of Commerce.)
