This issue of South Bulletin focuses on the UNCTAD XIII conference in Doha at the end of April. It ended with the adoption of a Doha Mandate, which gave UNCTAD a new and broad 4 year mandate to continue to work on a wide range of issues, including the global financial crisis, macro-economic policy and debt, as well as other trade and development issues.  

This may not at first sound exciting -- that a mandate is reaffirmed. But given the big battles over the past few months to just allow UNCTAD to continue its present work, the UNCTAD XIII outcome is a success. (See the last South Bulletin No. 61 for our news on the battle for UNCTAD’s future mandate).

However the Doha Mandate came only after many tense and intense days of negotiations at Doha, with the G77 and China united in its strong positions. High-level officials kept to their positions in a small room upstairs, while experts went through the text line by line downstairs.

The South Bulletin has an overview article, as well as reports on the statements of the G77/China and other groupings at the closing, a closing speech by UNCTAD head Dr Supachai, and the statements of the South Centre as well as Brazil (which has a very good analysis of the global situation).

Other articles in this Bulletin include:

• The Staggering Rise of the South? In which the Centre’s Chief Economist Yilmaz Akyuz examines whether developing countries have really de-linked their growth from that of developed countries.
• The need to review the basic concepts of the patent system by Carlos Correa, the Centre’s special trade and IP advisor  
• India’s compulsory license for anti-cancer drug by German Velasquez, the Centre's special health and development advisor
• The South Centre’s statement on the global economic crisis, presented to the G24 Ministerial meeting in Washington.