Global Policy Forum

By Gustavo Capdevila

The international community's plan to reverse the exclusion of the least developed countries (LDCs) from the multilateral trade system is limited in scope and its chances for success are in doubt.

The plan, sponsored by six inter-governmental institutions, creates a 20-million-dollar fund to finance three years of technical training for officials from the 48 poorest countries to help them deal with the legal and political labyrinth of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The programme is also meant to direct assistance toward the LDCs' development needs that are related to international trade.

But the proposal has not been well received by wealthier nations, whose delegates announced during the WTO General Council's session this week that they are concerned about the creation of this type of assistance fund.

The US delegation argued that linking trade trends to development policies and programmes would consume enormous amounts of money just in paying the consultants. ''It doesn't actually benefit LDCs but benefits consultancy,'' the US representation commented about the plan.

This reticence on the part of industrialised countries follows the downward trend, particularly evident in recent years, in official support for international development.

Most of the wealthier countries' criticisms of the aid project for LDCs were concentrated on the issue of the fund, according to Keith Rockwell, WTO spokesman. The institutions entrusted the administration of these resources to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), ''I suppose because they have experience in handing out money,'' Rockwell said.

LDC spokesman, Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, of Bangladesh, deemed the total in the fund, 20 million dollars, modest. The fund will also receive voluntary donations, which opens the way for further inconveniences before the assistance plan can be launched, said one LDC diplomat.

But despite the obstacles, Chowdhury embraced the initiative on behalf of the 48 poorest nations in the world. ''It is a step in the right direction in the wider attempt of the international community to integrate LDCs into the global economy through capacity building in the area of trade,'' he said.

In addition to the WTO and the UNDP, the International Trade Centre, International Monetary Fund, World Bank and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development are involved in the initiative to bring the poorest countries into the global trade system. The same six agencies also took part in a similar project created in October 1997 at the behest of the WTO.

But since then the performance of world trade remained consistently negative for the LDCs. Evaluations by the World Bank indicate that the initiative lacked appropriate administration and sufficient resources.

In this respect, the industrialised nations acknowledged that they must work to repair a system that has not functioned well and has kept the poorest countries from fully participating in world trade.

The outlook for the new plan, known as the Integrated Framework for Trade-related Technical Assistance to Least Developed Countries, remain uncertain also because of the difficulties of implementation when so many institutions are involved. Each one of the six agencies has its own system for consulting with its member countries, complicating the consensus necessary for managing the project, Rockwell admitted.

Diplomats of the LDCs said their expectations for obtaining trade benefits are concentrated in the outcome of the European Union- sponsored Third Conference of Least Developed Countries to be held in Brussels next May.

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