Trade Development Symposium

Mission

The goal of the GTDS is to encourage innovative thinking and analysis on issues related to trade and development for stakeholders to translate them into inputs for future negotiations. The GTDS will bring together acclaimed academics, policy researchers and analysts, IGOs and NGOs with expertise and knowledge in development-related issues, businesses or the private sector, and parliamentarians as speakers on panels to stimulate the discussions.

The main topics for discussions will be drawn from key development-related issues in the trade policy and trade rules arena. Particular attention will be paid to how trade policies can help to meet the needs of sustainable human development, the Millennium Development Goals and Targets, and other public policy objectives and needs such as poverty eradication, equity as well as education, health and nutrition.

The specific objectives of the GTDS are to:

• Build greater understanding of the positive and negative development-related impacts and concerns of trade policies/rules and the current agenda;
• Promote the need for ‘policy coherence’ for sustainable development in relation to trade negotiations;
• Provide informed and constructive recommendations on development-related policies to key actors in the Doha Round negotiations and in regional and bilateral agreements;
• Build new networks and strengthen existing ones among the trade and development communities.