Ministerial Declaration

We, the Ministers and Heads of Delegations of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) participating in the Ministerial Conference on “Aid for Trade: An Industrial Agenda for LDCs” held in Siem Reap, Cambodia from 19 to 20 November 2008;

Mindful of the global financial crisis and its impact on world economies and especially those of LDCs;

Being conscious of the urgency to ascertain balanced and expeditious development and transformation of the economies of our countries;

Recognizing that while our countries have the primary responsibility for their own development, the development partners can play a vital role by providing us with timely, adequate, complementary and properly coordinated support;

Being aware that trade provides an essential channel for integration of LDCs into the global economy and that the building of internationally competitive productive capacities is a key to achieve this;

Re-emphasizing the Vienna Ministerial Declaration of LDCs made on 30 November 2007 at the conclusion of the Ministerial Conference on “How Aid for Trade Can Transform LDCs” hosted by United Nations Industrial Development organization (UNIDO) and the Group of 77 and China, held in Vienna Austria from 29 to 30 November 2007;

Recognising the complementarities of the mandates and competencies of the various development actors and partners, which obligate their collaboration in assessing the needs, designing appropriate support programmes, and mobilizing the necessary resources to finance such programmes;

Appreciating the efforts undertaken by UNIDO and WTO, together with the Secretariat of the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF), pursuant to the Vienna LDCs Ministerial Conference of 2007, to design pilot supply-side support programmes for eight LDCs in collaboration with the concerned countries, ITC and UNCTAD, as were presented and discussed at the Kigali Workshop in September 2008;

Appreciating also the efforts undertaken by the Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) to identify priority areas for future Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) capacity building in eight pilot LDCs and commending the WTO and UNIDO on their signature of a framework agreement covering UNIDO co-operation with the STDF;

Commending UNIDO and the WTO for their cooperation and efforts, in cooperation with the Government of Cambodia, that resulted into a successful co-organisation of this LDCs Ministerial Conference;

Underlining the importance of bilateral and multilateral donors providing predictable and sustainable financial and other resources to support the supply capacity building initiatives in LDCs;

Stressing our recognition of the role that can be played by AfT in building the essential supply-side capacity and expedite socio-economically beneficial integration of our countries into the global economy

Welcoming the fact that the EIF is now functional, and being conscious of the potential it holds as one of the mechanisms for the operationalisation of AfT;

Being aware that monitoring and evaluation are important elements of the AfT and EIF processes;

We the Ministers and Heads of Delegations now herewith declare the following:

1. We reiterate the resolve of our countries to take the lead in designing the relevant transformation programmes, and to seek collaboration from our development partners in realizing such programmes;

2. We call upon all our development partners to appreciate the need for industrial supply-side capacities as enabling factors that will make our economies benefit more from the existing opportunities provided by the international trading system and those that will result from future arrangements; and strongly urge them to continue assisting us to use trade as an instrument for development and poverty reduction;

3. We emphasize our determination to nurture strategic and practical partnership with our development partners, in order to sustain our cooperation and improve the impact of that cooperation in effectively pursuing the opportunities that the AfT and EIF provide;

4. We strongly urge our development partners to implement all internationally agreed measures in favour of LDCs, and to adopt new ones, to enable our economies to benefit more from the existing opportunities provided by the international trading system and those that will result from a successful conclusion of the Doha Round. In this context, we stress that AfT must be a complement to, and not a substitute for the results of the DDA.

5. We call for a speedy conclusion of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) negotiations, which will open up new market access opportunities, in particular for the LDCs, and which will contribute to the beneficial integration of our countries into the multilateral trading system. In this respect we stress the importance of coming to an agreement on the agricultural and non-agricultural market access modalities by the end of the year, so that the DDA can be concluded by 2009.

6. Considering the mandates and competencies of the UN agencies involved in capacity building in LDCs, the EIF, and the trade and productive capacity cluster, we call for the continuation of active inter-agency dialogue, and in this context, for the agencies involved to work closely with the EIF, as a way for furthering the enhancement of aid coherence.

7. Cognizant of the need to have a suitable blending of nationally- and regionally targeted measures, in order to improve the impact of support to our countries, we call upon all national and regional actors involved in the EIF process and the broader AfT initiative to identify feasible support measures at various levels; and also to ascertain a broad-based participation of development partners;

8. Considering its role as an industrial development organization, we encourage UNIDO to enhance and expand its efforts towards industrial productive capacity of our countries by participating in designing and implementing specific and well targeted projects in cooperation with ITC and UNCTAD as well as other partners;.

9. In view of the increasing importance of South-South economic interactions through investment flows, trade, and technological innovations and transfers, we urge UNIDO to use the opportunities provided by AfT and EIF to further develop and expand its concept of South-South industrial cooperation.

10. In view of the urgency and magnitude of the needs of our countries, we urge the EIF secretariat to devise viable strategies for the speedy mobilization of additional resources as well as for an expeditious disbursement of the available funds, and thereby ensure smooth implementation of programmes.

11. In order to ascertain reliable funding of its trade and productive capacity building activities in our countries, we urge UNIDO to pursue further the mobilization of additional funds that will be used to finance the relevant support programmes in LDCs, and urge donors to contribute generously.

12. Cognizant of the need to further elucidate the requirements of our countries, we call upon our development partners to assist our countries in the completion of the AfT partner questionnaires, which will help the LDCs contribute to the 2nd Global AfT Review in June 2009 by providing their assessment of the progress made in the identification of trade priorities, in the articulation of these priorities in their development plans, and the effectiveness of responses by their development partners

The Ministers and Heads of Delegations of the LDCs are deeply grateful to the Royal Government of Cambodia for hosting the Ministerial Conference. The Ministers and Heads of Delegations also thank all those who, through their participation or input, have contributed to the success of this process.