U.S. STATEMENT AT UNCTAD’S 54TH TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT BOARD

Delivered by William Craft, Director
Office of Multilateral Trade Affairs
Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs
Department of State, Washington, DC

OPENING STATEMENT

October 1, 2007

Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the United States’ Government, let me congratulate you on your appointment. The U.S. delegation looks forward to a productive and successful TDB meeting and to contributing to this review of UNCTAD activities and discussion on the way forward for UNCTAD. I thank Dr. Supachai for his remarks and express gratitude for his commitment to trade and development and the hard work of his staff in making this meeting possible.

Mr. Chairman, we applaud the progress that UNCTAD has made in consolidating its work through ongoing implementation of cluster one recommendations from the Eminent Persons Report, and on capitalizing on its core mandate through highly-respected technical programs and useful intergovernmental meetings and research that respond to member states’ interests. Promoting greater member state involvement in UNCTAD’s work and encouraging the Secretariat staff’s responsiveness to member states’ priorities speaks highly of the strong leadership of this organization and its determination to enhance the development role and impact of UNCTAD.

We encourage the UNCTAD Secretariat and member states to continue moving forward with conviction in their reform efforts so that UNCTAD is appropriately structured to fulfill the new mandate that it will be given at UNCTAD 12. We believe UNCTAD can be a world class leader in promoting and facilitating effective trade relations and engaging within the global trading system to foster development and poverty reduction.

This 54th Trade and Development Board comes at a time when the development needs of the poorest countries are at the forefront of international concerns. I note that President Bush in his speech to the UN General Assembly last week stated that “the best way to lift people out of poverty is through trade and investment. A nation that is open in trading with the world will create economic rewards that far exceed anything they could get through foreign aid.”

The link between trade, investment, and development is undeniable and UNCTAD has a very important role to play in this arena. We applaud UNCTAD’s work with the ITC to highlight the lack of inclusion of “trade” in UN Development Assistance Frameworks. UNCTAD has several proven, high impact technical assistance products and services. We encourage UNCTAD to highlight no more than 6 or 7 of its main technical assistance products to UN Resident Coordinators so they can easily understand them and draw them to developing countries’ attention where relevant. UNCTAD should continue its invaluable work on this front, and we commit to working with this organization and through our membership in other international fora to help developing nations achieve their development goals through the benefit of enhanced trade.

The United States believes that UNCTAD must build upon it successes working cooperatively with other international bodies and exploit opportunities to expand these collaborative efforts with the UNDP, OECD, the World Bank, and others while also contributing its unique value to the process. UNCTAD has recognized expertise in such areas as customs management, investment research, and South-South cooperation, to name a few. Maximizing limited resources through cooperative ventures within the international development framework raises the stature and reach of UNCTAD products and services.

Regarding its research, UNCTAD must continue to establish mechanisms within the Secretariat for developing coherent policy advice and technical assistance based on sound empirical research and rigorous and objective analytical review. While recognizing that there are no one-size-fits-all recipes for development, we find that a best practices approach to research is particularly useful.

We applaud UNCTAD’s research and technical assistance programs in the area of entrepreneurship and enterprise development. We encourage UNCTAD to use its intergovernmental convening power to convey best practices in these areas and to provide a forum for member states to share solutions for overcoming barriers to business formation and growth and creating regulatory environments that both empower entrepreneurs and unleash the private sector as a driver of development.

At the same time, this organization must guard against regressing into unhelpful and unproductive practices by calling for unrealistic measures. Calls for drastic, unproven, or short-sighted policies that contravene international norms and market forces will not only fail to foster sustainable development, but will also run the risk of having deleterious effects on developing nations’ economies. UNCTAD can excel as an inter-governmental forum helping member countries reach consensus on ways to advance trade liberalization and build trade capacity. Attempts to reshape global financial systems, on the other hand, will only detract from UNCTAD’s credibility.

As we agreed in the Monterrey Consensus, each country has responsibility for its own development and to make good decisions that will attract private investment, open up the doors to trade, and foster economic growth. Developing countries are empowered to decide their own fate. Those that promote good governance, fight corruption, and open doors to trade will succeed in their development goals and realize significant gains.

We reiterate our unfailing commitment to end poverty. We also restate our conviction that a global trading environment that facilitates trade is the best and most sustainable way for developing countries to grow. UNCTAD has a role to play in assisting countries to achieve stable, long-term growth and development, and the United States looks forward to increased cooperation with UNCTAD to succeed in this mission.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.