By Sylvester Bagooro, TWN-Africa The eighth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which took place in Geneva from 15-17 December, 2011, has worsened the dilemma faced by African and other developing countries in the on-going Doha negotiations. Not only are these countries faced with the increasingly near impossible task of safeguarding their development needs and interests in a round of negotiations which have been touted as developmental, they now also have to deal with attempts by the rich countries of the North to dismantle key elements of the WTO architecture -- in pursuit of their own issues which are outside the mandate of the Doha negotiations. How African and other developing countries manage this difficult situation will be critical for their place in the international trading order for years to come. The Ministerial Conference ended with no clear direction as to the future of the Doha negotiations. Instead of the ministerial declaration normally adopted at the end of these meetings, the December 2011 conference ended with a Chairman’s summary of the varying views of Ministers on global trade governance and the way forward. This was an unsteady compromise between those who wanted to continue with the negotiations and sort out key remaining differences, and those who wanted to truncate the negotiations and start a discussion of new issues. Many African and other developing countries are confronted with the fact that key conclusions so far arrived at on important issues in the negotiations are unacceptable, and indeed threaten greater damage to their development prospects than at the start of the negotiations. At the same time, however, abandoning the negotiations will clear the way for the advanced industrial countries to reintroduce their pet themes which threaten even worse damage. Prior to Doha, most developing countries were opposed to the demands by the rich countries for a new round of trade of negotiations. Instead, they preferred for the WTO to continue with its “in-built agenda”, in particular around the distortions in agriculture behind which the rich countries were shielding their producers while wrecking havoc on the rest of the world. In addition, African and many other developing countries wanted to focus attention on the imbalances and difficulties in the Uruguay Round agreements which established the WTO, and which had placed huge burdens on these countries and their development. In the end, these countries reluctantly accepted the launch of the Doha negotiations because the built-in as well as the implementation issues were given priority on the agenda of negotiations. Once the negotiations started, however, the developing countries found their issues marginalised, while they came under untold pressure to give priority to issues of primary interest to the rich countries. These included principally the so-called Singapore issues of investment, competition, government procurement and trade facilitation, by which the rich countries sought to pave the way for their investors to easily enter and operate in the economies of developing countries. Sustained resistance to this state of affairs by developing countries, aided by global civil society advocacy, culminated in the collapse of the 2003 Cancun Ministerial Conference of the WTO, and the withdrawal of three of the Singapore issues from Doha negotiations. Nevertheless, the anti-development thrust of the negotiations, by which the interests of African and other developing countries were subordinated to the concerns of the rich countries continued to shape negotiations in the other issues of the Doha work programme. This was particularly evident in the areas of agriculture, industrial products, and services. In all these areas, the anti-development orientation of the negotiations so far has resulted in a situation where the proposals on the table will seriously impair the ability of African and other developing countries to build national/domestic productive capacity and develop their economies. In the area of agriculture the developed countries still have access to their huge subsidies and will be allowed to continue (though the nature may change) if the current proposals are agreed to. In contrast, developing countries, including African countries are being asked to cut their tariffs more steeply and widely than they did in the previous 1996 Round. These subsidies continue to impoverish poor farmers and producers across the Continent. With regards to negotiations on industrial tariffs, developed countries are reluctant in cutting down their industrial tariffs to allow African countries, in case of value addition to benefit from their markets. Developing countries are rather asked to slash their tariffs more. Some major developing countries have to cut their industrial tariffs by 50-70%, while developed countries' cuts are only around 25%. On average, developing countries affected by the proposed Swiss formula will have average applied tariffs of 11-12% after the cuts, which will be damaging to their domestic industries. In services, African countries are again under pressure to open up to foreign competition in many sectors such as finance, telecoms and retail trade. The threat of take-over of strategic services sectors by foreign multinationals will seriously harm the development of Africa. Clearly, so far the issues of development in the Doha negotiations have been watered down and attempts are being made to introduce new issues and approaches into the WTO. The attempts by African countries to counter these dangers are now being complicated by the new stances of the rich countries, as they promote both new issues for, and new approaches to, the Doha negotiations. Key players are the EU and the US. In October 2011 during the build-up to the Ministerial, the EU had prioritised trade facilitation as a key issue for the Ministerial. In addition to this, it also demanded the introduction of issues such as energy, food security, competition and investment. The model being used by the EU in pushing for food security for instance is to facilitate the importation of subsidized agricultural products into developing countries and also to bring back the issues of investment and government procurement that were rejected at the Cancun Ministerial In the case of the United States, it adopted the tactics of blaming others for the failure of the DDA. The US has been arguing that advanced developing countries like China, India and Brazil needed to make much better offers to open their markets in exchange for the cuts in farm subsidies and agricultural and manufacturing tariffs that the United States was being asked to make. Hence for the US, the round should be abandoned and it is rather pushing for plurilateral negotiations in the WTO especially in services. For instance at the recent Ministerial the US was under pressure to cut the billions of dollars it gives to its cotton farmers in subsidies every year. The subsidies remain one of the crucial sticking points in negotiations, especially for the ‘Cotton-4’ countries of Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mali) which lose millions of dollars in valuable revenue due to US subsidies dragging down the world price of cotton. The US trying to cover the issues did announce some steps to improve market access for Least Developed Countries’ cotton and pledged $16 million in technical assistance over the next four years. Such moves failed to tackle the root cause of the problem-that US subsidies prevent poor cotton farmers around the world from getting a fair price for their crop. Also, there are calls to dismantle the single-undertaking of the Doha Round. The logic inherent in the single-undertaking is that it ensures that all parties’ issues would be resolved according to their respective mandates. It guarantees a measure of ‘fair and balanced’ outcomes for all members. It makes sure that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. The above stances pose a number of threats to Africa. First, the call to dismantle the single-undertaking of the Doha Round would undermine the ability of Africa to apply leverage in ensuring that its issues not ignored while the interests of others are met. This is especially important given the relative weakness of African countries in the international balance of forces. Secondly and closely related to the dismantling of the single undertaking is the push for plurilateral agreements in the WTO where a few members agree on an issue and then open it up to other members. This kind of approach will introduce a two-tier system in the WTO. It will also require changing the mandate of Multilateral Doha negotiations. It will introduce a club business into the WTO where the issues of developed countries would be catered for to the detriment of African countries. Thirdly, the push for competition and investments issues in WTO by the EU has profound implications for the development of Africa. The attempt to introduce these issues among others led to the collapse of talks at the 4th Ministerial conference of the WTO in Cancun. Developing countries rejected the inclusion of these in the WTO because of the impact on the development of member countries. Investments agreements that demand that national and foreign companies be treated equally will make it difficult for Africa governments to discriminate positively towards local companies. Also, government procurements are crucial in sustaining markets for local industries and accepting them into the arena of the WTO will make it difficult for Africa to industrialize.