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Introduction.
The WTO TRIPS traces its origins from the 1994 General Agreement on Trade Tariffs
(GATT) Uruguay Rounds which proposed its existence. The TRIPS in essence spells out the standards
for divers forms of regulations that touch on the intellectual property rights. To this effect, it divulges
on standards each nation must meet to enforce the copyright laws, patenting, trade marks, the
protection of confidential information, and the geographical indications. After the narrowness and the
limitations that were found in the TRIPS, DOHA was then proposed.
The DOHA is a multilateral commercial system that has been enshrined in the World Trade
Organization(WTO) and seeks to make enhancements on economic growth, expansion and
establishment. Having existed over fifty years, this multilateral trading system aims at working towards
the entrenchment of international trade by ensuring a system that promotes the liberalisation of trade
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and international trade policies that catalyse the recovery of the economy, its growth and development.
It is on this backdrop that the DOHA multilateral commercial system is against protectionism in
international trade, following the objections that were created in the World Trade Agreement, the
Marrakesh Agreement (Yeaman, 2003 pp. 39).
Recent developments in the DOHA and TRPS meetings and their impacts on the LDCs' agriculture and
industries.
The latest DOHA development and TRIPS Agreement national workshop meeting was held on
22nd February, 2007 in Indonesia, under the aegis of the WTO which was in liaison with the ministry of
foreign affairs (Oberg, 2002 pp. 214).
In the meeting, there were pressure from the developed economies on the developing countries
to fulfill their obligations spelt out in the TRIPS Agreement Article 66.2. This demanded that the Least
Developing Countries (LDCs) facilitate and carry out technology transfer so as to introduce and
maintain an efficient technological base that will make international trade feasible. The LDCs were
censured for only submitting reports that touch on technological training and capacity erections (Zhang,
2001 pp. 66). This is normally taken as a failure on the side of the developing economies, yet their
financial base is too narrow to support this undertaking. The main issue here is the time and the
financial resources that are needed to realise the policy and this is not being well considered by the
developed counterparts (Tawfik, 2000 pp. 138).
The fourth WTO conference was held in November 2001, in Qatar, to ensure that TRIPS (Trade
Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) member states are helped to interpret the TRIPS
policies so as to be able to take comprehensive measures on public health. Even in the WTO which is
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still a confederation of different states which have come together for the sake of trade, interests still
thrive. The interests range from interstate competition to competition taking on the form of regional
blocks pitted against each other (Plat, 2000 pp. 92). In this sense, regions and states will always seek to
have policies that are favourable to them, entrenched by the WTO. For instance, Europe, the biggest
global importer of agricultural and farm produce wants all forms of local support accorded to farmers
plummeted. Europe's main import zones include the developing economies and few developed
countries such as the United States, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Australia. In the same
wavelength, it wants all the export subsidies offered to the same farmers extirpated by 2013. On the
other end, it is pushing for lower tariffs (Taylor, 2003 pp. 40).
The European Union says that it is pushing for global accessibility of all industrial goods in the
international market. For this, it is aiming at pressuring the WTO to cut out high tariffs. From the
facade, this seems a good idea, but it is, under close scrutiny, an artifice to strengthen Europe. Reduced
subsidies will increase farming expenses for the farmers while at the other end, plummeted tariffs will
only enable Europe to acquire agricultural and farm imports at a very affordable rate (Probs, 2002 pp.
155).
From the days of the WTO's General Agreement on Trade Tariffs (GATT), there have been
serious cases of structural imbalances and over protectionism in some trading regions, compared to the
others. Therefore, Developing countries in the Uruguay Round expected that the heavily protected
sectors (textiles and agriculture) would be made more accessible so as to make it possible for the LDC
products to have sufficient international access. Howbeit, the two sectors remain locked being
characterised by highly proscriptive tariffs with some striking and passing the 200% 300% mark
(Correa, 2004 pp. 244). This comes in the wake of the OECD's Domestic subsidies having soared from
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275 American billion dollars to 326 billion. In the textiles and fabrics domain, very minimal items
produced by the LDCs have been removed from the quota list even after ten years of corrective
implementation period has elapsed. According to the Bureau of International Textiles, only thirteen out
of seven hundred and fifty have been exempted from the quota list by the US, while Europe has only
excised fourteen out of two hundred and nineteen, and Canada, twenty nine out of two hundred and
ninety five. This made it obvious that most of the quotas will not have been eradicated by the arrival of
the targeted period of 2013 (Thomas, 2005 pp. 39). At the turn of the century, the realisation towards
this exercise was retrogressed by America's announcement that she would in order to protect her local
steel industry, impose a 30% tariff on her steel imports. This demonstrates clearly the fact that most
developed nations in the WTO are not ready to forfeit their interests just to facilitate international trade
(Rajan, 2005 pp. 139).
Inspite of the fact that the developed countries have not carried out all of their liberalization
obligations, yet LDCs are the ones currently under pressure to expedite their liberalisation of their
investments and imports from the international financial entities and regional trade facilitators. The
paradox of these developments is that the developed countries who propose these policies ask for more
time to restructure their textiles and agriculture while the LDCs having been forced to restructure, are
told to persevere the pains thereof for a time.
For instance, the proscription of investment subsidies and measures makes it very difficult to
facilitate the domestic or local industries. This in turn ushers in poverty and then consequently,
dependency syndrome. The liberalization of the agricultural sector is also a setback to small scale
farmers since their products become subject to international competition which is characterised by
cheaper foreign products ,making incursions into the market. The products from the developed
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countries are always cheap, following the fact that the dealers in them enjoy huge government
subsidies. On the other hand, the developing economies do not have a financial pool, large enough to
facilitate the issuance of subsidies to its farmers. This amounts to nothing else but unequal competition
( Tomilson, 1998 pp. 106).
WTO TRIPS tolerates very high standards of IPR ( Intellectual Property Rights) type of
leadership. This leads to the entrenchment of high prices on medicine, health services and other
essential services at the behest of Northern corporation patenting. These Northern corporations deal in
biological materials which come from the south and their patenting leads to high costs and at the same
time, diminishes the accessibility of industrial technology to developing countries (Trebilcock, 2000
pp. 91).
Again, on the 15th May, 2003 WTO TRIPS Meeting that was aimed at implementing policies
that were to aid development seemed to lack sincerity and good will. The TRIPS were to engage in the
technical support and assistance of the LDCs. However, even the Secretariat was not accorded with
chance to air the key issues as touching on the options of the LDCs. This means that should this plan be
carried out, the assistance may not be that which will truly meet the needs of the LDCs (Hoekman,
Philip and Mattoo, 1996 pp. 45).
The matter of patenting of the pharmaceuticals that have been proposed by the WTO TRIPS is
also posing a potential threat to the LDCs. The developed economies know this well and this is why, in
liaison with the movers and shakers of these ministerials, are trying to hoodwink the LDCs by
exempting them from subscribing to the Sections 7 and 5 fully, citing an extended grace period that
stretches to January 2016 (Gamharter, 2004 pp. 69). However, they are quite sure about the accruals
that will begin to trickle in on the inception of these sections. This period is not enough for the LDCs to
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improve their health sectors to match the competition that will be coming from the international
medical and health care practitioners. LDCs are likely then to face untold miseries in the public health
sectors, taking the form of the inability to provide comprehensive medicinal services and health acre
due to price fluctuation from the international dealers. The local medical care givers will also face a lot
of disillusionment, stemming from competition from the international medical care givers.
In the agricultural sector, the TRIPS has also been a let down to the LDCs. This is because,
although the LDCs have not yet industrialised, meaning that their economic mainstay is agriculture,
yet, Paragraph 11 of the Agricultural Section of the TRIPS only lists down matters pertaining to
agriculture, in relation to the LDCs' development, but does not elaborate further how the issues are to
be tackled. This section contains serious matters such as the LDCs being excluded from the exercise of
curbing the subsidies, so as to extirpate cases of cheap foreign food products from inundating the local
food products and market, the ratification of a market access that is quota free to the LDCs agricultural
products (Evenson and Staniello, 2004 pp. 203). This section also was supposed to tackle the issue of
LDCs being given the chance to re evaluate their bound tariff rate to ward off cases of disillusionment
of local farmers in the LDCs . Inspite of the seriousness of this provision, it has never been developed
or revised for ratification, since it seems that the accruals will now not be trickling so much more to the
developed economies (Carvalho, 2002 pp. 97).
The local service providers in the developing world have also been left non viable due to the
fact that developing economies have been forced to open up to international market, their service
sectors. For instance, it is on this backdrop that national telecommunication corporations in Africa, are
closing down following the arrival of the international telephone service providers such as the
American originated Vodaphone company, and the European telephone service provider known in
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Africa as the Celtel (Trendl, 2002 pp. 49)
LCDs' frustrations stemming from inconsistencies in the running of the WTO programmes.
Apart from these glaring facts about the competitive interests of the states, developing countries
encounter setbacks in the realisation of its goals due to lack of structural balance and some pitfalls
within the WTO. For instance, in 1999 Seattle ministerial and in the 2001 DOHA ministerial,
developing economies presented these realities with the intention of making the WTO revoke the
pristine stipulations, only for the developed economies to state that developing economies had entered
commitments that were legally binding, and that it is incumbent upon the developing economies to
complete their payments first before such matters of abrogation of policies are considered. In the fifth
Ministerial which was convened in Singapore, 2003, the LDCs were being prevailed upon to postpone
the issues for the new agreements but at the same time, the LDCs were still subject to the many
concessions on their side. This does not only betray the lopsidedness of the WTO, but also acts as a
pointer to the fact that the developing economies were going to continue being subjected to double
payments (Twiggz, 1989 pp. 80). Hitherto, the developed countries had not accrued any anticipated
gain from the textile or agricultural concessions.
Developing countries are, concerning the issue being told that their proposals that they be given
access to the Northern markets, will only, as a pay package deal, be considered in the post DOHA
meeting schedule. However, this was to be on condition that they conform with new WTO issues. It is
a fact that the new agreements may not usher in gains since the WTO lacks reciprocity, as is being seen
in the international trade imbalance. This is also intimating the fact that even in the face of new
agreements, developing countries will still be poised to be shortchanged. Furthermore, there is no clear
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pointer to the fact that there will be the WTO systems and policy re evaluation or balancing. Neither is
the access to the Northern market by the developed countries, nor the abrogation of these policies going
to take place so easily (Wu, 2003 pp. 120).
Many developing countries also find themselves receiving difficulties in the form of plummeted
prices of commodities and the incapacitation on the side of the developing countries to diversify or to
adjust upwards, their exports, due to the limitations on the side of the supplies and the accessibility of
the market. This problem also arises out of the imbalances within the trading system of the WTO
(Wong, 2002 pp. 75).
Even the process by which consensus is reached in the WTO is wanting. The will of the
developed countries always seem to inundate that of their counterparts in the developing countries.
While it is true that the majority in the WTO comprise the developing economies, yet their unified
voices cannot secure their interests against their developed counterparts. When the LDCs presented
their objections to the WTO, the developed economies maintained that there was no apparent need for
WTO systems and rules being rebalanced. The developed economies being the minority, yet could still
prevail upon the WTO panel to have it that the recommendations by the LDCs be reviewed in peace
meals. This is the reason why even after several years before and after the DOHA, no re balancing or
review of these inequalities have been carried out. On the contrary, appeals by the developing
economies that there be the reviewing of the problems before the inception of negotiations on new
areas were drastically scuttled (Vohra, 2000 pp. 19).
Upon these development, the developed countries also arose to exert pressure on the WTO to
lengthen its mandate to make rules so as to integrate the new areas that were being opposed by the
LDCs, an action which the developing economies countered together with other groupings from other
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regional blocks (Benson, 1996 pp. 102). Apart from stating their case that they were not set to have
new negotiations and/ or to adhere to the subsequent rules, the underdogs stated it clearly that they
were not in full knowledge of what the newly proposed issues could portend, in terms of obligations. In
addition to the above reasons, the developed economies maintained that the newly proposed
agreements would add to their already inundating burdens, more obligations which would continue to
further derail their development progress. As a result, the LDCs maintained that these newly proposed
agreements be still considered for discussions but without being given first hand priority (Burke, 1999
pp. 33) .
However, spates of unusual and enigmatic methodologies in WTO decision making, made it
possible for the views of the developing countries not to be considered in Geneva DOHA Ministerial
Declaration. This state of affairs elicited disgruntlement from the developing countries' side since they
saw in this, nontransparent and unrepresentative draftings. The LDCs posited that a draft elaborating
the differences between the two sides be availed in lieu of the one sided draft which tended to carry
some elements of deception that it was drafted on a consensus. Strangely enough, once again, these
proposals were disregarded and the document that favoured the new issues was adapted as the premise
of the negotiations. This gave the developed economies an upper hand.
At Doha, in the Green Room meeting, only very few countries were allowed in, to act as the
representatives of those left out. The process turned out to be unrepresentative, nontransparent, and not
the true representation of their views.
Objections arose at the last session at DOHA when the chairperson at the meeting declared that
a consensus touching on modalities and the newly proposed agreements was a prerequisite for the
negotiations to begin in the next sitting (Chan and Sherman, 2000 pp. 54).
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The prospects of the post DOHA constructions and how they are likely to affect the LDCs.
Experts posit that the talk is to touch on nineteen areas which are broad scaled, touching on
politics and economy, as opposed to the Uruguay Round agenda which only touched on economics.
The Post DOHA program is said to be heavy since it touches on human resources, time and technical
expertise which the developing countries lack. Other issues that are likely to come up are subsidies,
electronic commerce, dumping, and the new work program which at the present is said to promote the
imbalance between the developed and the developing economies in the WTO. Instead of seeking to
offset the inconsistency between the two spheres, the WTO has on the contrary, accorded special
handling of the high areas of interests to the developed economies and neglecting the high areas of
interest to the least developed economies (Shan, 2007 pp. 203). This has translated into situations
whereby areas that are considered to portend deep interests are being rushed after by the developed
countries while in the mean time the developing economies try to deliberately hinder these areas from
being seized by the developed economies. Some of these areas of interest touch on matters such as
electronic commerce, matters touching on the environment and employment (Tsuruoka, 1995 pp. 89).
More problems are bound to arise since, whereas the the developing countries consider the
implementation issues such as the provisions of the balance of payments, textile and agriculture, these
matters have not been slotted anywhere in the work programmes main text book. On the other hand,
matters that are considered more important by the developed countries compared to the developing
counterparts, matters such as science, technology, and finance are already in the main text book of the
main program.
Matters such as special and designated treatment are also considered important by the
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developing countries since this party wants to tackle the issue in the next DOHA ministerial, to instill
precision, effectiveness and efficiency. In the main text book of the work program, this matter has not
been featured anywhere, meaning that the developing countries will in the meantime continue to be
subjected to the whims of those with the upper hand in the WTO. This system of special and designated
provision plummet the substantive extent of the obligations that are to be presided over by the
developing economies. It is thus very clear that even the work programs provision, or its running is
lopsided and is therefore of no benefit at all to the developing economies. Instead, it is a stepping stone
to the developed countries for their beneficence, yet, these countries give nothing to the developing
countries (Schuller, 2002 pp. 144). This happens in the face of total contravention to the GATT/ and
the WTO Reciprocal Principle since the process of negotiations amongst all members of the WTO
must be guided by the chief principle of reciprocity.
The concept of reciprocity according to experts should not be pegged on particular
commitments in the agreements, but should also be based upon the designation of items for close
attention . Albeit, it must be noted that it is quite paradoxical that the WTO new face started with a
promotion of an imbalance. Interestingly enough, this same work program has been at times referred to
alternatively as the development plan. It is commonsense that if the development plan itself is faulty,
and has also been totally fixed by the top developed countries to suit their own economic interests,
given the fact that nothing has been reflected in it to give priority to the developing countries, then the
world should anticipate nothing else but the widening of the gulf between the rich countries and the
poor countries ( Chan, 2002 pp. 2002). Not only this, but if the situation is not turned around (for which
there is a very slim chance), then capital is likely to continue flowing from the developing countries
into the metropoles, making the metropoles richer day by day, while leaving the poor more emaciated
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upon every actualisation of an international business deal.
As touching on the implementation issues, the decisions by Doha has not been very satiating.
For instance, it is now a WTO policy that agreements and countervailing policies touching on subsidies
in the least developing countries with a Gross National Production (GNP) less than 1,000 US dollar per
annum, keep on being included in the sanitary and phytosanitary agreement measures list. It is only
upon exceeding this line for three consecutive years that a country will be expunged from this list. On
any country's GDP falling below this mark, the country will automatically be re included in this list
(Chan Gonzaga, 2001 pp. 121).
This portends more problems to the Developing economies since they are the ones who are
highly susceptible to fall into these traps, given their small scale economies and hence, low GDP.
Although there have been proposals by developing economies that these systems that cause imbalances
and give rise to problems be revoked, yet as far as touching on these substantive matters, there has been
hardly development made on the issue. It is on this premise that many developing economies will be
given no priority in the oncoming post DOHA meetings, since these countries will be falling within this
rubric of countries that fall below the mark of 1,000 US dollars per annum. Much to the chagrin of
these developing nations, the matters already designated for negotiations (the Singapore issues) are not
only very sensitive, but are also posing higher potential of reaching the negotiation status. This makes it
harder for the rest of the developing countries, should there be need to reach consensus through a
plebiscite, which is usually a game of numbers (Das, 1999 pp. 120).
Following the stipulations from the Uruguay Round, part of the oncoming designated agenda
for the WTO will touch on the negotiation on agriculture. The previous DOHA declaration spells out
that in the agricultural negotiations, the principal focus will be working out towards total excision of
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the export subsidies. This will also include the working towards making governments desist from
issuing local support offered to the farmer and the trader, since this local support, they say, distorts
international trade. Mostly, this will demand that developed countries be prevailed upon to to revoke
the issuance of subsidies (Elchelberger and Allen, 2000 pp. 55). Experts point out that the major
developed countries can use these terms to point out that the measures of the domestic support that
were included in Annex 2 are not to be subjected to reduction talks. This will lead to the major
developed nations being exempt from the reduction injunctions. This will be catastrophic to the farmers
and traders in the developing economies since they will not be liable to receiving subsidies while their
counterparts in the developed economies will be receiving the subsidies. This brings about unequal
competition in the international market yet at the same time, it poses high protectionism in the
developed countries. This is an outright application of double standards.
The oncoming negotiations will also include the part of services as one of the set in agenda.
This will follow in the wake of the realisation of the fact that the WTO branch, the General Trade on
Services, the GATS, is also imbalanced. The developed economies poses far much greater power in the
services sector, while the developing countries on the other hand, are very feeble in this sense. In
addition to this, they are faced with limitations in supply. This leaves the developing economies with
the incapacity to fairly compete with the developed countries.
General impact of the WTO stipulations on the LDCs
Having looked at that pitfalls of WTO and its bodies (the DOHA and the TRIPS), it is now
incumbent that the consequences of these pitfalls on developing economies be looked at. It is also
important to note that some of these implications have already been dealt with.
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The WTO deals with other nations through the two Bretton Woods institutions, the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund. It is these two Bretton Woods institutions that some times make
sure that the policies carried out in the WTO to promote the international financial transactions are
implemented or carried out by the developing countries. It is to this effect that these institutions are
known to carry out draconian measures on developing countries to ensure that these countries ratify the
implementations. For instance, the 1990s saw most African countries and other developing countries
being denied foreign aid because they were still resisting the implementation of the Structural
Adjustment Programs. Apart from the fact that this measure stagnated the development process and the
financial growth rate, most countries were left paralysed, not being even able to support even the
running of the daily domestic economic activities (Guo, 2002 pp. 100).
These Structural adjustment programs were in themselves not suitable to the developing
economies' prospects and programs ( it must be remembered that the Structural Adjustment Programs
were the initiatives of the WTO which then was out to bolster international trade). To be more precise,
the Structural Adjustment Programs had one of its guidelines being cost sharing. Herein, developing
countries were to reduce their debt to revenue ratio by accepting this methodology of cost sharing.
This policy was being heralded by the developed economies and the two Bretton Woods
Institutions as the panacea that was to extirpate the widespread cases of over reliance on foreign aid
(Lewis 2000, pp. 208)
In the first case, African countries and their developing counterparts were told that they were
spending too much on their educational programmes. To turn around the situation, these countries
were supposed to withdraw permanently, the custom of issuing allowances to students. In addition to
this, access to educational loans was to be plummeted, meaning that only students with high
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outstanding performance were to access these loans. The governments in the developing countries, and
especially Africa, were to invent ways of making money from the educational sector, and for this, the
Module Two Programs emerged. These Module Two Programmes, otherwise known as Parallel
Programmes run autonomously from the government funded, or subsidised conventional university
programs (Hu, 2001 pp. 255).
These measures on the educational programs have lead to massive cases in the developing
economies not being able to expand their educational programmes, to match the rising educational
demand that stems from the growing population. As a result, many students who merit going to the
university miss securing admission. In addition to this, the Parallel programmes are too expensive for
the ordinary citizens in the developing countries to afford.
In a nutshell, this measure of cost sharing in the educational sector only succeeded in making
education in the developing countries inaccessible, and thus making these countries susceptible to
massive cases of brain drain. For the first time, in the 1994, four years after the inception of the
Structural Adjustment Programmes, there were cases of university students being dismissed from
universities due to fee arrears in the eastern Africa region. At the same time, those students with good
grades and a fair financial pool who fail to make it to the government subsidised programmes opt for
oversees studies in the developed countries. Upon completion, these students prefer to work in these
developing countries. This massive cases of transnational exodus for greener pastures has left the
developing countries more and more subjected to brain drain and lack of skilled labour (Kang, and
Feng, 2002 pp. 107).
Still on the concept of cost sharing, the governments in the developing countries were prevailed
upon by the two Bretton Woods Institutions to reduce their expenditures by carrying out a massive
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exercise of downsizing the civil service so as to trim its size. These exercises were to be carried out
starting from 1995 2005 in most African economies for example. In Latin America, the measure was
to be carried out in phases starting from 1992 2002. However, contrary to what developing countries
were told, the carrying out of this exercise only proved to be a Pandora box, ushering in untold
catalogues of untold misery at the hands of poverty. Simply put, the myriad numbers of the retrenched
civil servants found themselves subject to poverty ( Low, 1997 pp. 124).
In the same spectrum, the concept of international trade which was formed by the WTO and
heralded by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that nations cede away the
production of certain products to other countries with specialisation ( both natural and human
resources, together with technological endowment), does not ager well with the developing nations.
Developing nations are kept from realising their dreams of indutrialisation through this concept.
Moreover, the concept itself is innately twisted since a nation can be having adequate natural resources
and man power, but can be a fledgeling economy that has not yet fine tuned its technological
advancement with its indutrialisation programmes (Lyon, 1996 pp. 51). More importantly, the exercise
translates into more problems since it leads to more cases of jobs being forfeited, especially in the
developing economies, since developing economies have not yet fully been industrialised. This strain
of international outsourcing coupled together with its twin, the downsizing of the civil service, has
increased the level of unemployment in the developing sector. The problem proves to be hydra headed
since the potential tertiary education students who miss out on learning opportunities together with the
retrenched civil servants, add to the bulk of the unemployed population with no means of livelihood. It
is on this backdrop that all the developing economies have national security matters making it to the
top five national agenda in the annual review of national programmes (Shrybman, 2001 pp. 67).
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World trade, an undertaking which the WTO Is chiefly interested in, is in itself also bedeviled
by many issues that touch on the entrenchment of political, cultural and economic domination of the
developing countries by their global trading counterparts, the developed countries. For instance,
although the developed countries form the minority in the WTO DOHA, yet their will is highly
predominant over the developing countries' (Wong and Mc Ginty, 2002, pp. 40). In addition to this, the
same institutions that are used to channel foreign funds to the developing economies, the World Bank
(WB) and the International Monetary Funds (IMF), belong to the developed economies. In addition to
being the conduit through which foreign fundings reach other countries, these two Bretton Woods
Institutions are supposed to offer advisory services, and at the same time, carry out investigative and
monitoring activities on the developing economies' progress (Mah, 1998 pp. 120). In the course of the
monitoring progress, the developing economies are supposed to submit their statements of accounts to
either the WB or the IMF. This exposes easily, the developing countries to political manipulation by
the developed countries, especially those in the west (Markel, 2000 pp. 43).
It is also through the WTO's international outsourcing that different multinational corporations
have been able to make incursions into the developing nations territories to indulge in the provision of
goods and services in the developing countries. Some of these companies include the shipping
company, Maersk, the petroleum companies such as the British owned, British Petroleum (BP) and the
Shell, and the American and British owned Kenol Kobil (Lauffs and Singh, 2000 pp. 173). Any country
that wants to take part in the trade that uses the sea routes in the eastern African region must register
with the Italian shipping and handling company, Maersk. This in itself amounts to economic
domination since these countries are accorded a laissez faire condition, devoid of domestic
competition. In the same vein, the companies that come from the developing countries are not accorded
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by the WTO and the international trade counterparts any chance to trade in the developed countries'
backyard ( Lewis and Rhodes, 2002 pp. 88).
It is a well known fact that the process of international trade relations is mostly hinged upon the
concept of instantaneous exchange of information in a trans border sense. Because this process is aided
by the existence of technological advancement, the previous WTO DOHA ministerials and the TRIPS
meetings have been characterised by the prevailing upon the developing countries to hasten the process
of technology transfer and installation (Li, 2002 pp. 187). This was in accordance with the aim to have
free and efficient flow of information in an interstate manner that could promote trade. Although this
measure being considered by the TRIPS under the aegis of the WTO is not geared towards any harm,
yet the WTO has not yet looked at the full repercussion of this measure. For instance, it is on this
backdrop that developing nations have fell for serious cases of cultural domination. Since the
developed countries exceed the the LDCs in commercial and technological knowledge and skills, most
of the trans border exchange of information flow from the developed countries to the LDCs. However,
with this huge volume of needed information, also comes, information that always insinuate the socio
cultural traits of the developed countries as being superior to the LDCs'. At the same time, the Socio
cultural practices in the developed economies are insidiously permeated into the social fabric of the
developing economies (Lewis, 2002 pp. 62).
It is on the above premise that small factions have come up to resist these spates of
developments by using terrorist attacks. While these attacks are always aimed at the major developed
economies, yet to instill pressure on the developed nations, these quasi religious military ragtags also
aim at the trading allies of the major developed countries who are normally, the LDCs. It is because of
these state of affairs that there were twin bombings in the two most lucrative capitals in the eastern
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African region in August 1998 by the Al Qaeda forces. Similar cases are also widely common in the
world of the developing countries (Mukherjee, 2000 pp. 172).
Conclusion.
Therefore, it can be seen clearly that the LDCs in the international trade through their relations
with the developed countries, courtesy of the WTO, has elicited more pain than gain. Nevertheless, all
is not lost for the LDCs, since the Doha declaration posits that it, as an organisation, has an aim of
making the development of the LDCs actualise. To this end, the development needs of the LDCs such
as food security and health will continue to remain core issues that will control the implementation of
other policies.
The LDCs should seize this provision to illustrate that their indutrialisation and development
will not come without food security, and food security will not be realised by their economies since the
mainstay of their food source remains, small scale farming. These small scale farmers being
economically challenged, deeply need government subsidies and domestic support.
In nearly the same manner, the LDC factions within the WTO such as the the Group 15 that is
made up of the heads of the governments should continue working towards collaborations among the
LDCs in calling for new global approaches, as it was agreed upon by the same in the 11th Summit that
was held in Jakarta, Indonesia.
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