The workshop was opened by Manzoor Nadir, Speaker of the Parliament of Guyana and co-chair of the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO (PCWTO), Tanya Bertoldi, member of the National Congress of Argentina and member of the PCWTO Steering Committee, and Said El Hachimi, Senior Counsellor overseeing WTO relations with parliamentarians and intergovernmental organizations and outreach.

Other participants in the discussions included experts, representatives from the private sector, academics and members of other organizations such as UN Women, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Parliamentarians Network for Global Health (UNITE), FLACSO-Argentina, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Argentine Development Bank (BICE).

Over the two days of the seminar, parliamentarians received detailed information on MC12 outcomes, with a special focus on the key elements of the so-called “Geneva Package”, such as the pandemic response, the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, and Members' ongoing discussions on WTO reform.

Parliamentarians also had the opportunity to discuss regional trade integration, the challenges of digitalization, the need to boost trade from a gender perspective, and trade-related environmental issues.

Parliamentarians were in agreement regarding the encouraging outcomes of MC12. They emphasized that these outcomes responded to the current complex socio-economic situation and should help international trade to contribute effectively to efforts to build a resilient environment in line with ongoing international community mobilization, as called for in the Statement of the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO (PCWTO) within the framework of MC12.

Looking to the immediate future, parliamentarians undertook to communicate the MC12 outcomes and explore parliamentary actions for their implementation. They agreed to promote interregional dialogue on investment and international trade with a view to contributing to a sound and resilient socio-economic environment. They also concurred on the need to facilitate the building of institutional capacities in the parliaments of the region and to seek support from these parliaments with a view to contributing to the work of the PCWTO and its Steering Committee.