On Monday 19 September, the afternoon session in the main conference room delved into the subject of food security - a topic to be focused on in the next issue of ITC's
TradeForum magazine. The conversations were moderated by Mr. Clem Boonekamp, the Director of Agriculture and Commodities Division at the WTO and included contributions from Ms. Carmel Cahill (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), Mr. Kostas Stamoulis (Food and Agricultural Organization), Ms. Lauren Landis (World Food Programme) and Mr. François Riegert (French Mission to the WTO).
The debates recognised the importance of food price stability, the need to remove trade restrictions on humanitarian aid as well as increase coordination, information and transparency in markets and mentioned the recent decision to establish a new Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) secretariat in Rome, Italy.
On several occasions focus was directed to export restrictions, the WTO Ministerial Conference due to take place in December 2011 and specifically paragraph 40 from the outcomes of the G20 meeting in Paris, June 2011. The paragraph in question reads: “We recognize that the first responsibility of each member state is to ensure the food security of its own population. We also recognize that food export barriers restricting humanitarian aid penalize the most needy. We agree to remove food export restrictions or extraordinary taxes for food purchased for non-commercial humanitarian purposes by WFP and agree not to impose them in the future. We will seek support within the United Nations agencies and will also recommend consideration of the adoption of a specific resolution by the WTO for the Ministerial Conference in December 2011.”
More information about the public forum, including how to take part, can be found on the
WTO website.
The next issue of ITC's
TradeForum Magazine, available in October 2011, is themed around food security, agriculture & trade development and will include articles outlining new approaches to feeding the World's population, the role of Aid for Trade, gender equality in rural development, price volatility and leveraging private partnerships.