Global Policy Forum

By Charlotte Denny

Britain has created a £20m aid package to help the world's poorest countries fight their corner at a new round of global trade talks, international development secretary Clare Short said yesterday.

The money will be spent on training negotiators and helping poor countries increase their influence at the World Trade Organisation's Geneva headquarters.

While the big trading powers like the United States and the European Union employ hundreds of lawyers and negotiators to advance their interests, many sub-Saharan African countries cannot even afford to keep a permanent representative in Geneva.

Those countries which do have representation often have only one person to deal with all aspects of the WTO's increasingly complex negotiations. The WTO now hosts up to 40 meetings a week on subjects from air transport to competition policy.

Opponents of further trade liberalisation argue that poor nations get a raw deal at the negotiating table with most agreements stitched up between the US, EU and Japan.

"The interests of many nations and their populations are not represented at most of the negotiations that go on in the WTO," a report from a coalition of aid agencies warned earlier this year. "By contrast, the US has over 250 negotiators in Geneva, and richer countries frequently fly in technical experts to deal with complex issues."

With trade ministers due to begin talks on launching a new round of tariff-cutting tomorrow in Doha, Qatar, poor countries are emerging as key to the success of the meeting. Many African delegations are extremely unhappy with the current draft negotiating text.

Analysts now fear that divisions between main trading blocks and clashes between rich and poor countries mean Doha could be a replay of the WTO's last attempt to launch a round in Seattle two years ago, which failed when developing nation members walked out.

Whitehall officials were at pains yesterday to stress that the £20m aid package being offered by Britain is not a bribe to persuade developing countries to agree to a new round but part of longstanding efforts to improve their position at the WTO.

Over the last three years, Britain has spent £17.8m on trade assistance measures for the WTO's poorest members.

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