The WTO Doha round impasse: Implications for Africa - ODI Briefing Papers 41

• There is no single ’African view’ of what a development-friendly WTO compromise would look like • African countries benefit and suffer from subsidies, depending on their products and export markets • African countries should prioritise their development needs and build alliances with other developing countries to present a united front The latest World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiation round, launched in November 2001 in Doha, was seen as a positive response to the terrorist attacks on the USA. The negotiations, known as the ‘Development Round’, had the ultimate objectives of reducing poverty and promoting development. Seven years later, the outlook is bleak. The Doha talks were suspended in July 2008, with trade negotiators increasingly lacking support from their governments. Future elections and rising food and energy prices have exacerbated protectionist tendencies and shifted the focus from international development to self-interest. There are serious concerns as to whether talks can be revived. It is often argued that the success of Doha would only benefit big developing countries such as Brazil, China or India, while African countries and, in particular, smallholder farmers, would lose. This argument assumes that African countries lack the capacity to benefit from broad tariff cuts on the export side and would become more vulnerable on the import side if tariffs were reduced still further. However, the caveat ‘the devil is in the detail’ is nowhere more appropriate than in trade negotiations. Without knowing whether Doha will finally succeed and, if so, what a compromise would look like, we cannot finally determine who will win, and who will lose. This briefing paper aims to do three things. First, it will discuss in broad terms what was on the table in the latest WTO Round and what the latest compromise looked like. Second, it will analyse how such a global compromise would have affected African countries. Countries’ (contradictory) interests on subsidies and agricultural protection will be outlined, showing that there is no simple formula for ‘development’ – not even for a single country. Third, this briefing will draw on research from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) to discuss what African countries would require to benefit from international trade, and the extent to which these issues can be addressed by the WTO.