A Development-friendly Prioritisation of Doha Round Proposals

THE ‘Doha Development Agenda’ of November 2001 puts poverty-reducing economic growth at the centre of the WTO’s considerations. If the development focus of the Doha Round is to be a meaningful operating principle, then the overriding task of the round must be to ensure that the liberalisation agreements promote development in poor countries. In practice this means prioritising reforms which yield the largest benefits to developing countries; helping governments move towards good trade policies; and dealing effectively with the implementation constraints faced by poor members. A prerequisite for the first of these objectives is comprehensive analysis and comparison of the different effects of various reform proposals. Yet there is surprisingly little economic analysis of the precise consequences of potential trade agreements on participant countries. Where analytical studies have been done, they have not penetrated into the core of negotiations and do not seem to play a central role in setting the agenda. The absence of this type of analysis begs the question of what is driving the prioritisation of trade issues on the WTO agenda, other than a mélange of prevailing orthodoxies and the momentum of special-interest groups? This paper attempts to support progress towards a development-friendly agreement by reviewing the potential benefits and costs of liberalisation across various