UN expert urges trade ministers to focus on food security outcomes at Nairobi WTO meeting

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Hilal Elver, on Tuesday called on trade ministers gathering in Nairobi, Kenya, for WTO's ministerial meeting to deepen their commitments to fulfilling the strong development mandate of the current round of trade negotiations.

"Trade rules must be shaped around the food security policies that developing countries need, rather than policies having to tiptoe around WTO rules," Elver said on the eve of the tenth ministerial meeting, on from Dec. 15 to 18.

"Reforms to the WTO's agriculture rules are urgently needed if progress toward the right to adequate food is to be realized," the expert said, noting that negotiations had been stalled since 2008, until negotiations in Bali, Indonesia in 2013 generated progress on a limited set of development issues, including trade facilitation.

However, negotiators have since failed to agree on a post-Bali plan of work, and developed countries have refused to make good on the promise to resolve conflicts over developing country programs that involve public food stockholding for food security purposes.

Elver expressed grave concern on the calls by some negotiators to cease negotiations on the Doha Development Agenda. "A handful of developed countries should not be allowed to block the Doha Round, which is not just a set of issues, but a set of principles and a negotiating framework that emerged after more than a decade of stalled negotiations," she said.

"More than a hundred developing countries have expressed the need to continue the Doha Round, which must be respected," the expert underscored.

"All countries must respect the needs of the Least Developed Countries and move beyond mere rhetoric, to address their concerns, with quantifiable outcomes," the Special Rapporteur added. Endit