[South Bulletin 62 Article]

The UNCTAD XIII outcome document (the Doha Mandate) represents a significant achievement and an important success which is much more than just a minimum outcome, said UNCTAD Secretary General Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi at the closing day of the UNCTAD conference.

Dr Supachai was speaking at the closing plenary of the Committee of the Whole, just after the Committee’s president, Ambassador Mothae Maruping of Lesotho, had gaveled the adoption of the Doha Mandate.

Said Supachai: “Like many of you, I have also reflected on UNCTAD’s original mandate from the General Assembly: To serve as “the focal point of the United Nations system for the integrated treatment of trade and development and interrelated issues of finance, technology, investment and sustainable development,” as the outcome says in paragraph 17.

“These are capacious words, or maybe audacious words. To embrace them is to take on a major responsibility.

“The words of UNCTAD’s mandate really can be understood to include almost any aspect of international economic relations. So it is wise and necessary that we come together every four years to debate and reflect, to push and push back, topic-by-topic, asking: What does this mandate mean today, given the changes that have taken place and that are foreseeable in coming 48 months; how have our understandings of trade, of development, and of the interrelated aspects of finance, technology, investment, and sustainable development evolved? What does it mean to pursue an integrated treatment? What have we done well? How do we know we have done well? How much is too much? How much is necessary to be done, must be done?”

Added Supachai: “As countries look more and more to the United Nations to take a more active role in global economic policy coordination and governance, we have been called to lead major new UN system coordinating efforts on trade and development and productive capacities, on climate finance, on responsible lending and borrowing, on commodity price volatility, on the trade and investment implications of sustainable development and of green economy. 

“At the same time, we have been beefing up and are constantly being urged to do more work on South-South trade and investment, on mainstreaming gender perspectives in development, to give just three examples. Countries say to us, in effect, “UNCTAD, you have been talking up industrial policy for decades, when everyone else said they were a very bad idea. Now that even the World Bank is reconsidering its views on industrial policy, can you walk the walk and show us how to do it?”

“Developing countries are also asking us to help them formulate more effective strategies for regional financial and monetary cooperation, on making national banking systems more effect as drivers of development, on developing effective approaches for fostering enterprise development, especially for employment generating SMEs. They are asking us to convene inter-regional discussions on regional trade agreements and development corridors—and in so doing to provide the appropriate analytical and data support.

“And don’t forget, we are the focal point for the UN system on all trade issues in their relation to development; on science, technology and innovation in relation to development; and on commodities. Also it is UNCTAD’s research and analysis that still drives international discussion of the special challenges of the LDCs and the most effective strategies for addressing them.

“Yes, our debates have been motivated by interests. We are here as representatives of nation-states, not as disinterested scholars. Yes, you have often been passionate in your exchanges, and, yes, things have been said that might have been better left unsaid.

“And yet you have all agreed to preserve and build upon UNCTAD’s ambitious scope of work. That you have engaged so determinedly and that you have persevered so doggedly suggests that you believe something truly important was at stake. These are indications of seriousness of purpose.”

The Secretary General said “today marks an end to the anticipation, and a beginning to the real work. The text you have produced is merely the beginning of the next chapter in UNCTAD’s history, a chapter that all of us will need to write together.”