Press/280
13 March 2002
Introduction course on WTO for least-developed countries begins

Government officials from 22 least-developed countries attended yesterday the opening session of the Introduction Course on WTO. The brief ceremony was chaired by Mr. Ablassé Ouedraogo, Deputy Director-General of the WTO, who, on behalf of Mike Moore, welcomed all the participants.

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Mr. Ouedraogo underlined that the participants will have a real opportunity to increase their knowledge and understanding of the WTO, its work and what it constitutes for the least-developed countries. “It is an opportunity to learn from inside, as the course takes place in Geneva, at the WTO Headquarters”, said the Deputy Director-General.

For the first time, the introduction course, which lasts three weeks, is financed through the regular budget of the Organization. It is also the first time that the programme, centered on practical and concrete presentations, is developed in close co-operation with the International Trade Center (ITC).

Throughout the three-week training, which will end on 28 March, the 22 participating officials will become acquainted, through lectures and round-tables, with the essential aspects of the WTO, a general picture of all the agreements, how the WTO functions and the basic principles of the multilateral trading system.

During their stay at the WTO, participants will also have the possibility to attend a meeting of the Sub-Committee on Least-Developed Countries and to debate with experts and practitioners on the various aspects of the "Doha Development Agenda" launched at the last session of the Ministerial Conference of the WTO held last November in the capital of Qatar.

The WTO Training Institute's mandate includes organizing the traditional three-month trade policy courses, which were instituted already under the GATT, in 1955, but also covers the development of activities in the following areas: training for trainers, a diversified range of short-term trade policy courses, distance-learning services, as well as increased co-operation with universities and other institutions of learning handling WTO and trade-related issues. Since November 2001, the Institute is advised by a Consultative Board.

  
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