Co-organizers: UNCTAD, South Centre, Center of Concern/CIDSE, Equatorial Guinea Investment Corp.

Date: 13-14 September 2007

Time: 9am – 6pm

Venue: Room XXV, Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland

Background: This seminar is the second in a series designed to address issues and options for integrating a more holistic vision of the trade and finance intersection into the actual negotiations in trade and financial fora, as well as the design of domestic policies. The first seminar, "Trade and Finance Linkages for Promoting Development" was held in Geneva, October 19-20 2006, co-organized by South Centre, Center of Concern and German Marshall Fund US. Thus, it will provide important resources for operationalizing mandates embedded in recent international conferences such as the mandate to address "the consistency and coherence of the financial, monetary and trading system" as expressed in the Monterrey Consensus (2002), and the concept of policy space, embedded in the Sao Paulo Consensus, at UNCTAD XI (2004), in the service of national development objectives and the Millennium Development Goals.

The seminar will convene trade negotiators, high-level officials from Finance Ministries, other officials from governments and intergovernmental organizations, civil society and academics. This second seminar will take particular aim at the linkages between trade and debt and the impact of a holistic approach to those linkages in the design of trade and debt policy measures, internationally and domestically.