WTO: 2007 NEWS ITEMS

Closing remarks by Pascal Lamy at the General Council debate on Aid for Trade

  
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Like others before me today, I believe that we have hit the target we had in organising this first Global A4T review. We registered an impressive and unprecedented level of involvement, support and goodwill.
The challenge is now to build on this momentum so that we can show more results in the next steps. Not that we do not already have results, but we need to show more.

I see possible progress in 2 main directions

1. improve our analytical tool box, numbers, data, tables, performance indicators. Not only with donors but also with recipient countries. This fundamental principle of ownership is also about the way benchmarking progress is done, so that accountability can work across the board.
2. increase country focus, regional focus, sector focus. The format we inaugurated in 07 with regional reviews is in my view worth replicating in 08

On top of these 2 directions, I also believe we would benefit from more business and civil society input, and that we should reflect on this.

Let me conclude in saying that since we have been working on this issue, I have been impressed, like Valentine, with the ambiance of cooperation, and the low level of divergences we have registered. This is also true for South South A4T which is now under way which will add to the momentum.
I am glad about this.

It confirms my initial view that A4T is about more than money. Of course, it is about financial flows. But it is also, perhaps more importantly, about building connections and trust which after all is what our core business in WTO is.
Finally let me also thank the secretariat team and Valentine, Richard, John and others who have been working very hard with limited resources and under a lot of pressure. You can rely on us all to keep going.

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