Senegal banana plantation
License: ODI given rights
Credit: C.Gofas
Source: Europeaid Photo Library
successful outcome to the WTO ministerial in Hong Kong is far from certain as there are some difficult issues to overcome. This series of meetings looks into key unresolved issues at the WTO.
'Measures affecting temporary migration of services providers on a contract basis, as intra-corporate transferees, or as self employed, are high on the agenda at next month's WTO Ministerial meeting in Hong Kong, where developing countries hope they will get a fairer deal that will enable them to trade their way out of poverty'
Increased openness affects income inequalities within developing countries by affecting factor price ratios, asset inequalities, spatial inequalities, gender inequalities, and the amount of income redistribution. Most time-series studies find that greater openness has increased the relative demand for skilled labor, but most cross-country studies find that greater openness has had little impact on overall income inequality. One possible explanation is that countries selected for time-series analysis are not representative of all developing countries. Another is that the effects of openness on income inequality via the relative demand for skilled labor have been offset by its effects via other channels.
This meeting looked at how trade, and in particular freer trade, could support development in Africa.
May 2003, DFID asked ODI to analyse the potential poverty impacts of the Doha Development Agenda. The purpose was to improve understanding of what aspects of the outcome might be particularly favourable or unfavourable for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. This was intended both to help the UK and developing countries to make poverty-focussed decisions on the proposals in the Trade Round and to identify possible needs for complementary or offsetting policies once decisions had been taken.
Picture of Sheila Page and Baroness Jay panel taken at ODI public event: Is the EU a responsible trade partner? (22 October 2003)
License: Creative Commons
Source: ODI
This event looked at the European role in trade negotiations, following the WTO Ministerial meeting in Cancún which had failed to provide the political momentum to move the Doha agenda forward.
