RIS Policy Brief 19

to achieve a breakthrough in the World Trade Organization’s Doha Round. Their goal is to get an agreement by the end of 2008. Developing countries should pull the plug on this moribund round until rich countries can agree to a new framework that lives up to Doha’s promise to be a “Development Round” that favours poorer countries. As rich country leaders try to rally negotiators for yet another “make-or-break” deadline, in what has become the most imminent agreement in history, developing country negotiators should remember why the proposals on the table deserve to be sent back to the drawing board. Here, we review the economic projections, from the World Bank and other institutions, that show how limited the gains are for most developing countries and how high the hidden costs of an agreement could be. With projected gains of less than 0.2 per cent, poverty reduction of just 2.5 million people (less than 1 per cent), tariff losses of at least $63 billion, and projected declines in the relative value of exports, developing countries have little to gain from rushing to conclude Doha.