DG Okonjo-Iweala: Time for members to show restraint and agree on texts for MC12

At an agriculture negotiating meeting for delegation heads on 1-2 June, Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and the chair of the agriculture negotiations, Ambassador Gloria Abraham Peralta (Costa Rica), heard members’ feedback on three draft texts that emerged from an informal consultation process which the DG has led since early May. With the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) fast approaching, the DG urged members to restrain their comments to the extent possible so that “simple, short, beautiful and balanced” texts could be sent for ministers’ consideration.

The three texts include a draft ministerial decision on agricultural trade reforms, a draft ministerial declaration on trade and food security, and a draft ministerial declaration which would exempt from export bans food bought by the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) for humanitarian purposes.

The DG said the three texts seek to set the negotiations on a new path forward, and to overcome the risk of stalemate on the earlier draft. She warned ambassadors that limited time remained until MC12, to be held on 12-15 June, and urged them to focus their suggestions specifically on crucial elements that could help members strike a better balance in the text.

The chair said the three texts are complementary and should be considered together. She also noted that the drafts reflected the difficulties members had faced in narrowing negotiating gaps on key issues.

“These draft texts reflect the reality of where we are today,” she told the meeting.  She said the drafts aimed to provide the impetus to reinvigorate the agriculture negotiations by giving them new drive and political direction, and also to provide a meaningful immediate response to the ongoing food security crisis.

Members should now be guided by “a strong sense of urgency and responsibility”, the chair said, underscoring the need to deliver results at MC12 which demonstrate WTO members’ ability to move forward together on their shared objectives on food and agriculture trade. Doing so would also demonstrate the WTO’s relevance in the face of the urgent global challenges facing the food and agriculture system today, she said.

The chair said the draft text on the agriculture negotiations, which sets out broad objectives for each negotiating topic and some principles to guide the negotiations post- MC12, marks “a new beginning” in the negotiating process, establishing a clear commitment to continuing the negotiations and achieving concrete outcomes by the following ministerial conference (MC13).

The new text preserves in a streamlined and concise form the spirit and key elements of the previous version, she said.

The chair told the meeting that the separate draft declaration on trade and food security highlights the multiple challenges to global food security and puts forward several proposed actions, including keeping trade flowing and minimizing trade distortions as far as possible, as well as emphasising the importance of taking account of the needs of least developed countries (LDCs) and net food-importing developing countries (NFIDCs).

Thirdly, the draft declaration exempting from export restrictions food bought by the UN’s World Food Programme includes a paragraph to confirm that the decision does not affect members’ right to adopt measures to ensure their domestic food security.

While several members regretted a lower level of ambition than expected, many members agreed that the overall structure of the three texts improved the equilibrium among negotiating topics and strengthened the prospects for success at MC12.

Some members insisted on the importance of balance across the board and made the case that all negotiating topics should have the same level of ambition and the same deadline for concluding negotiating “modalities” – the blueprint deal which would set out how members eventually establish new commitments.

On food security, most members agreed the draft declaration would represent a much-needed immediate response from the WTO to the looming food crisis.  Some said the text should more explicitly emphasise the crucial role of trade in addressing food security. Some also proposed linking the draft declaration more clearly with the ongoing negotiations under Article 20 of the Agreement on Agriculture as part of the long-term solution to improving food security in the future.

Some developing members suggested the text emphasise more clearly the importance of improving their domestic productivity and improving access to food.

While almost all members expressed their support for the WFP waiver, two continued to express reservations. Some members also said they favoured a clear and simple declaration on the WFP waiver without the second paragraph.