'Skyscrapers and docks in the busy commercial hub of Dubai.
Source: Panos Pictures/Mark Henley

The emergence of China, India and Brazil as rivals to the European Union and the United States has given developing countries as a whole far more clout at the negotiating table.' Larry Elliott, Economics Editor, The Guardian and ODI Council
member.

• Publications
  
• Meetings
  
• Blogs
• Comment by Christopher Stevens, Director of Programmes, International Economic Development Group

Publications

Relevant 2007 Annual Report pages (PDF)

Briefing Papers

• Economic Partnership Agreements: What happens in 2008? by Christopher Stevens, July 2007. PDF>
• Policy space: Are WTO rules preventing development?
  by Sheila Page, January 2007. PDF>
• Creating development friendly Rules of Origin
  by Christopher Stevens, November 2006. PDF>
• Re-examining sovereign debt: Forgiveness and innovation
  by Lauren Phillips, September 2006. PDF>
• The 'Development Dimension': Matching Problems and Solutions
  by Ed Anderson and Christopher Stevens, June 2006. PDF >
• The Potential Effects of Economic Partnership Agreements: What Quantative Models Say
  by Massimiliano Calì and Dirk Willem te Velde , June 2006. PDF >
• Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs): Where We Are
  by Christopher Stevens, June 2006. PDF >
• Bretton Woods reform: Sifting through the options in the search for legitimacy
  by Lauren Phillips. PDF >

Opinions

• De Rato’s summer to-do list
  ODI Opinion by Lauren Phillips, July 2007. PDF>
• IMF reform: What happens next?
  ODI Opinion by Lauren Phillips, September 2006. PDF >
• Assessing governance: How can political risk analysis help?
  ODI Opinion by Lauren Phillips, August 2006. PDF >
• Lead, follow or get out of the way? The European Union and impending Bretton Woods
  ODI Opinion, by Sven Grimm and Lauren Phillips, March 2006 . PDF >
• Aid for trade: What does it mean?
  ODI Opinion by Lauren Phillips, Sheila Page and Dirk Willem te Velde, December 2005. PDF >
• From brain drain to brain gain: How the WTO can make migration a win-win
  ODI Opinion by Dirk Willem te Velde and Sven Grimm, November 2005. PDF>
• It’s a long bumpy road to Hong Kong – and there’s still no real route map
  ODI Opinion by Ian Gillson, September 2005. PDF >

Working papers

• Is Zambia contracting Dutch Disease?
  Massimiliano Calì and Dirk Willem te Velde. PDF>  More>

Books and book launches

• 2006 ODI Source Book on Development Related Trends
  Dirk Willem te Velde, Massimiliano Calì and Eva Ludi, January 2006
  More information and PDF>
• Regional Integration and Poverty
  Edited by Dirk Willem te Velde, 2006
  Contents> Buy online>
• Trade and Aid: Partners or Rivals in Development Policy?
  edited by Sheila Page. More >
• Special and Differential Treatment of developing countries in the WTO
  by Peter Klein and Sheila Page. More >

Background publications

• Food Aid and the Doha Development Round: Building on the Positive
  By Edward Clay. PDF >
• Resolving the outstanding issues on food aid
  Response to the Communication from the Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture Special Session, 30 April 2007.
  By Edward Clay. PDF>
• Getting it right? The Doha proposals on international food aid
  A commentary on the proposals for food aid circulated by the Chair of the WTO Agriculture Negotiating Committee in the August 1 2007 Revised Draft Modalities for Agriculture. By Edward Clay. PDF>
• Back to basics
  A commentary on the proposals for food aid circulated by the Chair of the WTO Agriculture Negotiating Committee on 7 November 2007. By Edward Clay. PDF>

Meetings

• Economic Partnership Agreements
  (2-part meetings series) July 2006 and date to be confirmed in 2007. More >
• Mapping the Future of the Bretton Woods Institutions: Challenges for the Mandate & Governance of the IMF & World Bank
  (2-part meetings series), September 2006. More >
• EPAs 2006 - Decision Year: Progress and Challenges on the Negotiation of Economic Partnership Agreements between the EU and ACP
  (2-part meetings series), July/December 2006. More >
• Re-examining Sovereign Debt: Forgiveness and Innovation in the Sovereign Debt Regime
  (3-part meetings series), June/July 2006. More >
• The WTO towards Hong Kong: What type of effects can developing countries expect from the Doha Round?
  (5-part meeting series), Autumn 2005. More >
• Services and Special and Differential Treatment
  (an ODI meeting), November 2005. More >
• The WTO and agriculture
  (an ODI meeting), December 2005. More >
• How the WTO negotiations could affect Africa
  (ODI/Royal African Society meeting), December 2005. More >
  

Blogs

• De Rato’s summer to-do list
  by Lauren Phillips, July 2007. Blog >
• IMF Reform: Tinkering at the Margins
  by Lauren Phillips, June 2006. Blog >
• Is the WTO too complicated? Or not complicated enough?
  by Simon Maxwell, January 2006. Blog >
• Debunking myths around the WTO
  by Dirk Willem te Velde, December 2005. Blog >

Comment from the 2007 Annual Report

Christopher Stevens, Director of Programmes, International Economic Development

The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) negotiated between the EU and the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific group (ACP) offer a good example of the difference that ODI can make by combining rigorous research with policy relevance. The overlap of the December 2007 formal deadline for EPA deals to be in place with the Lisbon Euro-Africa summit, has been a source of potential tension since Portugal announced its intentions for the latter.

EPAs are highly contentious – but much of the comment is ill-informed, simply because the devil is in the detail and the detail has been very slow to emerge. The ACP will have to remove tariffs on ‘substantially all’ imports from the EU over a period of two decades or more. By July 2007 none of the six regional negotiating groups had reached the stage of specifying which goods would be liberalised when.

During 2006, ODI worked directly with some of the EPA groups, and undertook workshops, training sessions and research to help prepare development-friendly liberalisation schedules. This continued in 2007 – but with the deadline looming and so much still to do an even more urgent task arose: to make sure (through researched-based public affairs work) that the EU did not impose new barriers to ACP exports from January 2008.

The problem: a WTO waiver justifying the EU’s current trade preferences for the ACP set to expire in December 07; most of the six EPAs too far from completion for them to be finalised before this deadline; no ‘off the shelf’ EU trade regime to offer from 2008 other than the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP). ODI research showed that the GSP would be catastrophic for the ACP, resulting in major revenue and job losses. Namibia, for example, would find itself paying four times as much in taxes to the EU on its exports than it receives as aid from EuropeAid!