UNCTAD [to 10 May 2014]
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UNCTAD places trade at the heart of sustainable development agenda beyond 2015
UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Commission held a debate on the role of international trade in the post-2015 development agenda on the first day of its sixth session on 5 May
Geneva, Switzerland, (08 May 2014)
The sixth session of the Trade and Development Commission included an informal meeting in the afternoon of its first day to consider “The Role of International Trade in the Post-2015 Development Agenda”.
With the form of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) that will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) currently under discussion, UNCTAD is making a contribution to integrating economic development and related global economic issues into the UN-led agenda beyond 2015.
The idea that economic growth can lift people out of poverty and form the basis of an aspiration for improving lives underpinned the MDGs – but the topic of trade was confined to Goal 8 (to “develop a global partnership for development”). Trade was mainly referred to as a matter of market access and tariff reduction, and in just three of 16 indicators used to track Goal 8.
However, UNCTAD’s work has shown that international trade should be mainstreamed as an “enabler” for achieving a broad range of social, economic and environmental development goals through promoting inclusive and sustainable economic growth. Exactly how this idea will be integrated across the SDGs, and what targets will be used to measure the outcomes of such goals as gender equality, for example, is currently a matter for consideration.
As part of UNCTAD’s ongoing contribution to the formulation of the SDGs, the Third Geneva Dialogue, to take place during UNCTAD’s fiftieth anniversary events held in Geneva from 16 to 20 June, takes as its theme “Trade as a means of implementation of sustainable development”.
One commitment supported by UNCTAD is the eradication of extreme poverty. UNCTAD has backed this aim since the first United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD I) was held in 1964.
“The States participating in the Conference are determined… to find ways by which the human and material resources of the world may be harnessed for the abolition of poverty everywhere,” read the Final Act of the UNCTAD I, which was held in Geneva…