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23 November 2001
WTO Director-General meets with international agencies on trade-related technical assistance and capacity-building

Director-General Mike Moore convened a meeting today of representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the International Trade Centre, UNCTAD and the World Bank to discuss inter-agency cooperation in the light of the commitments on technical assistance and capacity-building emerging from the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha on 9-14 November 2001.

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Mr. Moore said “Our owners have called for a far-reaching programme of trade-related technical assistance and capacity-building. Success in the negotiations will elude us unless we take this mandate very seriously, and we agencies need to work closely together to meet the expectations of developing countries. The fact that we have all met within a week of the Ministerial Meeting signals how important we see capacity-building and coherence to beginning and concluding a new development round”.

Agency representatives agreed to explore an appropriate mechanism for ensuring a proper coordination of efforts, building on existing cooperation and complementarities. They also agreed that the mechanism would be as simple and automatic as possible. In addition, work will be done to compile systematic information on the sources of technical assistance and details of programmes being carried out. The agency representatives will meet again shortly to further their work.