The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) will hold its quadrennial summit on 20-25 April in Accra, Ghana. The overarching theme of this year’s meeting is addressing the development opportunities and challenges of globalisation, with a high-level segment focusing on Africa. Although the continent’s GDP is estimated to have increased by 7 percent last year (even without counting the contributions of Nigeria and South Africa), not a single sub-Saharan country is on target for meeting the UN Millennium Development G oal of halving the proportion on people living extreme poverty by 2015.
The high-level segment is expected to address delays in the fulfilment of pledges for increased development assistance – whether trade-related or not – to African countries, as well as the effects of high food and energy prices. By some estimates, the cost of oil could cancel out any benefits that African countries are reaping from debt-relief initiatives.
The elaboration of the final text to be adopted in Accra is lagging behind schedule. In late March, consensus was still lacking on 230 paragraphs of the document.
The role and mandate UNCTAD are perennials of the quadrennial summits. This year, one of the main sticking points is whether the organisation’s mandate should be expanded to cover the trade and development implications of climate change and migration. Some member governments are concerned about duplication of work underway in other UN institutions, as well as the danger of UNCTAD spreading its resources too thin. Another bone of contention is reinforcing the organisation’s ‘role and effectiveness’ in research and analysis, intergovernmental consensus-building and technical co-operation. At previous gatherings, member governments have often differed sharply on the policy advice dimension of the institution’s work, with some developed countries advocating that UNCTAD should mainly focus on collecting and presenting data.