Ambassadors,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I’m very pleased to join you again at the International Organization of La Francophonie.

I’d like to thank you for your kind invitation and for this opportunity to interact with you.

I think these meetings are very important in building a strong partnership and strengthening our dialogue.

And I think this is very positive.

 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF LA FRANCOPHONIE

The International Organization of La Francophonie is a very special group.

Of course, you are bound by your common language. But at the same time, you are a very diverse organization. With 80 member states and governments, you have unique geographic and cultural spread.

You show that it is possible to be united in diversity. You make it your strength.

And I think this is something that you share with the WTO.

Today the WTO has 161 Members, encompassing 98% of global trade, and incorporating economies of every size and shape.

We greatly value this diversity.

At the WTO, every governing body is open to any Member. All have a voice; all have a seat at the table.

And our organizations also share common goals.

Both the International Organization of La Francophonie and the WTO have development at the heart of their work.

We want to improve global governance, so that people can live better lives.

But just providing more opportunities is not enough. People need the tools and capacities to join economic flows in a sustainable way.

This is something the International Organization of La Francophonie knows all about — with its many programmes and projects to support local know-how.

And this is also key for the WTO.

Our Aid-for-Trade initiative helps countries to improve their trading ability and tackle their infrastructure constraints.

Research has found that one dollar invested in Aid for Trade results in nearly 8 dollars of exports from developing countries — and in 20 dollars of exports from the poorest countries.

The adoption of the new Sustainable Development Goals last month helps to bring this into sharp focus.

Goals on ending poverty and hunger; supporting sustainable economic development; and preserving exhaustible resources — just to name a few — are crucial features in our work.

I think this underlines our common responsibilities as member-driven international organizations.

 

NEGOTIATIONS

Maintaining and enhancing existing WTO initiatives will be crucial to this effort.

But of course we must also improve the trading system, by negotiating new trade rules.

The WTO has had some major advances on this front in recent years.

The Bali package, which Members agreed in 2013, tackled a range of LDC, development and agriculture issues — as well as delivering the first multilateral agreement in the history of the Organization in the form of the Trade Facilitation Agreement.

We had another breakthrough in July this year. A significant group of WTO Members agreed to expand the Information Technology Agreement — delivering the first tariff-cutting deal at the WTO in 18 years.

These are both major agreements, with very important economic impacts.

And we have seen some significant progress in the accession of new Members to the Organization. Kazakhstan completed its accession process in July — and Liberia will do so in December.

So we have some recent inspiration. And we have an opportunity to deliver more in the very near future.

 

NAIROBI

In just over a month’s time, we will hold our 10th Ministerial Conference in Nairobi.

It will be the first time this meeting has been held in Africa since the WTO was created 20 years ago. There is therefore a clear sense that we must deliver outcomes for Africa — and for developing and least developed countries more specifically.

Members are working hard to prepare for Nairobi, but progress has again proved very difficult.

The big issues such as agricultural domestic subsidies and market access, have proved to be extremely contentious.

The situation is unlikely to change.

Despite all the efforts made, many areas of divergence and major gaps still remain.

Nevertheless, there is a clear desire to deliver outcomes in Nairobi. And I think there is an emerging consensus around the results expected in Nairobi.

Let me say a few words about each of these potential deliverables — without prejudice to anything else which we might be able to achieve.

First, export competition in agriculture.

An outcome here would be an extremely significant breakthrough. In fact, it would be the WTO’s most significant negotiated outcome on agriculture.

And we all know that this is a particularly important issue for developing and least developed countries.

Because, while export subsidies are at a low level at this time, there is no guarantee that they will stay that way.

Without multilateral commitments, there are no guarantees whatsoever that countries won’t decide unilaterally to increase these subsidies, as we saw after 2008, with all the negative impacts that this might have.

We have a historic opportunity to secure results that have long been fought for. However, any outcomes here are not assured yet. There is still a long way to go.

Second, we have potential outcomes to support development, and particularly LDCs.

Special & Differential Treatment is a key element here. And clearly it is a very important area for developing and least developed countries.

A range of proposals have been put forward and an intensive process is under way to review them.

Some of them contain very ambitious elements so we are seeing some real and very stark differences.

It may still be possible to deliver some important elements on Special & Differential Treatment, but this will require a lot of compromise from both sides.

LDC issues should be an integral part of the Nairobi package. Taking forward the LDC-specific decisions reached in Bali is, in my view, critical.

The Bali package also included provisions to improve DFQF (duty-free quota-free) market access for LDC goods, advancing the outcomes of Hong Kong in 2005. We should try to make concrete progress here in Nairobi.

To facilitate the utilization of these preferential schemes by LDCs, Ministers adopted, for the first‑time, multilateral guidelines on rules of origin. There is room for advancements here as well.

Bali also set the stage for implementation of the LDC Services Waiver. To date, 17 Members — including the major markets — have already notified their intention to offer preferences in sectors and modes of service supply of export interest to LDCs. I am urging others to come forward with their notifications as soon as possible.

Cotton issues were also part of Bali — and we are seeing important engagement here — including on the proposal recently submitted by the C4. I think that in domestic support we will find it tough to make progress, but I believe that results are possible for the cotton file.

So these are some of the most promising areas for Nairobi. I will continue to engage with Members so as to deliver a credible package for LDCs in Nairobi.

And finally, Nairobi deliverables could include some transparency provisions, which could cover issues such as anti-dumping and fishery subsidies.

This is another area where I think convergence is possible, but where it is perhaps less clear how it will develop.

So there are some promising elements in the pipeline for Nairobi.

But progress in all these areas will require a lot of work. Achieving any outcomes in Nairobi will be very tough.

I warned WTO Members last week that there was still a very long way to go — and very little time to get there.

So we need serious and urgent engagement on substance in the Negotiating Groups.

And Members need to rethink the red lines that they have been drawing.

We need a rapid increase in the levels of flexibility and pragmatism that we are currently seeing in order to get convergence.

Otherwise, I am concerned that even these elements that I just mentioned could slip away if we don’t act immediately.

And I am concerned about the consequences that this could have for our work after Nairobi.

 

POST-NAIROBI

It is true that these potential outcomes could have a real economic and developmental impact. However, they would clearly not be enough to declare the conclusion of the Doha Round.

So how do we take forward the outstanding issues after Nairobi — including the big issues?

It seems to me that all Members could agree to continue negotiations in the future on all of the DDA core issues.

They certainly could remain on the agenda — I think there is consensus on that.

However there is no agreement on how these negotiations should take place: whether under the present Doha framework, or whether under some new architecture.

Members are discussing all of this right now.

This is very important because we all know that negotiations on a wide range of trade issues are already taking place outside the WTO.

If we limit or paralyze conversations within the WTO, it will not mean that conversations on other trade issues don’t take place. It just means that they happen somewhere else — and, often, in formats where developing voices most likely will not be heard.

So the WTO has to deal with today’s challenges, never losing sight of the development dimension.

 

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, what happens in Nairobi will have real significance — and it will have an impact on some of the issues on your agenda here at the International Organization of La Francophonie.

I have given you a very frank assessment of the situation today — and it’s not a very positive one.

But I am still confident that the WTO can deliver.

Our track-record shows that this is possible, especially when we are creative and innovative.

So I hope we can defy expectations once again.

Thank you for listening — I look forward to our discussion.