WTO PUBLIC FORUM 2016
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Following the universal adoption of the SDGs there is an urgent need to transform these aspirations into a practical implementation agenda, including through trade policy making. However, important targets such as those related to the costs of trade in goods as well as services (incl. digital trade), which can disproportionately affect small firms and countries, remain absent from the SDG framework. Suggestions for more effectively institutionalising the implementation agenda of the SDGs include: embedding an SDG review process within the WTO Trade Policy Review Mechanism; bolstering trade surveillance; and more generally, monitoring trade-related targets such as the provision of Aid for Trade. Thematic, as well as practical country and region specific, examples will be drawn from across the Commonwealth and explored in this panel. The focus will be on the implementation agenda posed by the SDGs within the current global trading landscape and given likely future fragmentation processes.
Speakers
- Patrick Low, Vice President of Research and Senior Fellow, Fung Global Institute (Hong Kong); former Chief Economist of the WTO.
- Mere Falemaka, Ambassador, Permanent Representative, Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Geneva
- Niall Meagher, the Executive Director of the Advisory Centre of WTO Law in Geneva.
- Ratnakar Adhiri, Executive Director, Enhanced Integrated Framework, WTO
- Jodie Keane
- Brendan Vickers