Developing Country Voices: Rescuing the Development Agenda in the Doha Round Seminar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

5 March, 2006
Sponsored by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development

Debapriya Bhattacharya, Executive Director, Centre for Policy Dialogue, Bangladesh

Anwarul Hoda, Planning Commission of India, former DG of WTO

Faizel Ismail, Head of Mission to the WTO, South Africa

Mario Matus, Ambassador to the WTO, Chile

Kaliopate Tavola, Minister for Foreign Affairs and External Trade, Fiji

Food Aid

Mr. Hoda noted that food aid increases when commodity prices are low - and it should be the other way around if food aid were intended to help the poor. When food aid decreases when prices go up, it becomes obvious that food aid is a mechanism to help exporting farmers, not poor people.

"Development Package"

Mr. Bhattacharya noted that the percentage of world trade controlled by the LDC