Over 150 "special and differential treatment" provisions are available to developing economies and LDCs across WTO agreements. These provisions include providing longer timeframes to implement WTO rules and providing technical assistance to assist implementation. The overall aim is to boost market access opportunities and safeguard the trade interests of these countries. In 2001, WTO members decided to strengthen existing flexibilities, with a view to making them more precise, effective and operational.

Development-related decisions

Since 2001, members have adopted several decisions to seek to advance trade and development negotiations, to strengthen the trading capacities of developing economies and LDCs, and to facilitate the greater integration of LDCs into the multilateral trading system.

Trade and development negotiations

• Annex F of the 2005 Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration contains five LDC-specific proposals adopted by members. For example, developed-country members and developing-country members in a position to do so pledged to provide duty-free and quota-free market access to LDCs.
• In 2013, the “Monitoring Mechanism” adopted by members marked an important step to improve the implementation of special and differential treatment provisions.

LDC-specific decisions

• Further to Annex F of the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration on duty-free quota-free market access, in 2013, members committed to improve the existing coverage of duty-free and quota-free market access for LDC exports.
• In 2015, members adopted a Ministerial Decision to facilitate market access for LDC exporters of cotton.
• Two sets of guidelines were also adopted in 2013 and 2015 to make preferential rules of origin for LDCs simple and transparent.
• Members also took steps to provide preferential treatment for LDC services and services suppliers through the LDC Services Waiver in 2011 and its operationalization in 2013, which will remain valid until 2030. 

Trade support

• The WTO's  Aid-for-Trade Initiative launched at the 6th Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong in 2005 seeks to help developing economies and LDCs to build strong trade institutions, bolster infrastructure and build productive sectors with high export potential. The  9th Global Review of Aid for Trade, to take place from 26 to 28 June 2024, will offer an opportunity to take stock of global Aid-for-Trade initiatives to support developing economies in fully realizing their trade potential. LDC's are the second largest recipient of Aid for Trade, accounting for 27 per cent of total Aid for Trade disbursements in 2022.

Agreement-specific proposals

At the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) held from 26 February to 1 March in Abu Dhabi, WTO members adopted a Declaration on Special and Differential Treatment that responds to a 23-year-old mandate to improve the implementation of the flexibilities for developing members contained in WTO agreements, otherwise known as “special and differential treatment”. The Declaration would help developing economies and LDCs overcome the challenges on matters related to sanitary and phytosanitary measures and technical barriers to trade.

Discussions will continue on the remaining proposals tabled by the G90 group⁽¹⁾ of developing WTO members in the negotiating body of the Committee on Trade and Development known as the "Special Session". The objective is to enable developing economies and LDCs to pursue policies aimed at achieving industrialization, structural transformation and diversification of their economies, to raise living standards and to further integrate into the multilateral trading system in a sustainable manner. The proposals are based on the Doha Ministerial Declaration's Paragraph 44, which has been guiding the WTO's work on special and differential treatment since 2001.

The agreed process proposed by the G90 consists of discussing each proposal in various configurations. Initiated a year ago with textual submissions by the G90, each series of talks is to be overseen by facilitators nominated by the chair of the Special Session, Ambassador Kadra Ahmed Hassan of Djibouti.

The next textual proposals to be discussed relate to: i) Section B of Article XVIII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, dealing with balance of payments issues; ii) the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures and iii) Article 66.2 of the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights regarding technology transfer to LDCs. The proponents announced upcoming submissions on the remaining proposals, which will form the basis for discussions once Ambassador Hassan has nominated further facilitators.

LDC graduation

Graduation from LDC status is a top priority for the WTO's LDC Group, with 15 out of 45 countries currently navigating various stages of the graduation process. Over the past few years, LDCs have been emphasizing the importance of a smooth transition mechanism for LDC graduates.

At MC13, ministers adopted a decision to provide countries graduating from LDC status with a three-year transition period to adjust to certain WTO rules and continue benefitting from LDC-specific technical assistance training activities. Discussions will continue in the Sub-Committee on LDCs on other aspects of the LDC Group's proposal. Initially submitted in December 2022, the proposal focuses on market access and on 17 special and differential treatment provisions.

In Geneva in October 2023, WTO members had already marked an important milestone with the adoption of a General Council decision on the market access element of the LDCs' proposal. The decision encourages preference-granting members to provide "a smooth and sustainable transition period" for the withdrawal of duty-free, quota-free market access opportunities once countries graduate from LDC status.

A WTO member graduates from LDC status when it meets certain socio-economic thresholds set by the United Nations. The decision regarding graduation is taken by UN members on the recommendation of the Committee for Development Policy, an advisory body of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). While graduating is a notable development achievement, it presents challenges, notably the loss of preferential access to markets of other economies.

Out of the 15 LDCs on the path towards graduation, 10 are WTO members (Angola, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Djibouti, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal, Senegal, Solomon Islands and Zambia) while three are in the process of negotiating their WTO accession (Comoros, Sao Tomé and Principe, and Timor-Leste). The respective accession packages of Comoros and Timor-Leste were formally adopted by ministers at MC13. The other two graduating LDCs are Kiribati and Tuvalu.

A 2020 WTO report on the trade impacts of LDC graduation can be found here.

Find out more about trade and development here.

Small economies' integration into the trading system

At MC13, WTO members adopted a decision reaffirming their commitment to continue examining the challenges and opportunities that small economies face when integrating into the multilateral trading system.  They took note of the work undertaken to date in the Work Programme on Small Economies, which seeks to address the specific challenges that small economies face in participating in world trade due to a lack of economies of scale or limited natural resources, for example. The latest version of a WTO Secretariat compilation paper regarding this work is available here.

The decision calls on the Dedicated Session on Small Economies to continue monitoring the progress of the small economies' proposals in WTO bodies and negotiating groups and assess the effectiveness of measures aimed at better integrating small, vulnerable economies (SVEs) into global trade. The decision was initially submitted by the WTO's Group of SVEs as part of the Work Programme on Small Economies stemming from the 2001 Doha Declaration.

The previous Decision on Small Economies was taken at MC12. More information on the Work Programme on Small Economies can be found here.

The development-related decisions adopted at MC13 reflect WTO members' shared commitment to support developing economies in becoming more active players in international trade.  

Notes:

1. The G90, otherwise known as the “Group of 90”, consists of the countries that are members of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), the African Group and the LDC Group. back to text