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  The
document was signed at the IADB’s headquarters in Washington DC,
following a meeting of Latin American and Caribbean trade and finance
officials on the challenges their region faces in multilateral
negotiations and commitments under WTO agreements, and in negotiating
and implementing the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA).
In
order to help member countries meet their multilateral trade
challenges, the WTO and the IADB will step up their joint efforts to
assist them to strengthen their capacity to fully participate in the
multilateral trading system.
The
importance of capacity-building was highlighted in the recent Doha
Ministerial Declaration, in which WTO members sought to place the
priorities and interests of developing countries and least developed
countries at the heart of the WTO’s work program.
The
WTO believes that the memorandum could serve as a model for regional
development banks to support their borrowing member countries through
technical assistance and capacity-building programs that will allow
them to play a larger role in the Doha Development Agenda.
Under
the memorandum, the WTO and the IADB will work to establish joint
programs to support, among other activities, regional and subregional
workshops and meetings, training courses, and tool kits for trade
negotiators, distance learning courses and analysis of trade policy
and multilateral negotiations issues.
The
WTO and the IADB will also consider cooperating on technical
assistance programs to strengthen Latin American and Caribbean
countries’ capacity in trade-related areas pertaining to the
environment, competition, government procurement, investments and
trade facilitation.
In
recent years the IADB has collaborated with the WTO through the bank’s
Buenos Aires-based Institute for Integration of Latin America and the
Caribbean, which has financed WTO training courses for trade
negotiators from IADB borrowing member countries.
“It
is clear that Latin American and Caribbean countries need to build
capacity and rationalize their resources if they are to get the most
out of the negotiations — both for the FTAA and WTO — for which
deadlines are the same,” Mr Moore told the meeting. “One key to a
successful trade round will be technical assistance and
capacity-building — helping developing countries and least developed
countries to integrate into the multilateral trading system and
participate fully in the negotiations”.
Mr
Moore emphasized the need to coordinate with all the specialist
institutions that are active in the trade area. And he stressed the
WTO Secretariat’s strategic role in promoting cooperation, joint
technical assistance and capacity-building, noting that the
organization saw itself as a “clearing-house” or repository of
information for WTO-related technical assistance.
Noting
that he had been pursuing coherence issues since taking office in
1999, Mr Moore said the memorandum closely reflected the two
organisations’ joint priorities in capacity-building following the
Doha Development Agenda. “This is a model that can and should be
replicated in other regions,” he said, describing it as “an
important step forward”.
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