Fourth UN Conference on Least Developed Countries: Kimberly Elliott

This week, 10,000 representatives from around the world will head to Istanbul for the fourth decadal meeting of the UN conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC-IV).  Trade is likely to have a prominent place on the agenda. I invited senior fellow Kimberly Elliott, author of Delivering on Doha: Farm Trade and the Poor, to tell me about her expectations for the conference.“Duty free quota free access to rich country markets will definitely be one of the key asks of these LDC countries in Istanbul,” says Kim. “But I don’t expect there to be much progress, principally because the United States has shown no interest in moving on this.”Kim tells me that LDC officials are trying to link their trade asks to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Their argument: the MDGs are unobtainable without growth, and growth is unobtainable without increased access to the world’s richest markets.The LDC conference in Istanbul does offer some advantages for poor countries seeking to expand their opportunities, she says. Unlike the World Trade Organization, which is primarily a negotiating forum, the UN conference will focus on development, perhaps making it easier for the LDCs may to capture the attention of rich and powerful. But as Kim explains, in the United States, once a champion and leader in the global push for  more open markets, has shown little appetite for further opening its own markets to the world’s poorest countries.“The EU and Canada have moved quite far in opening up to LDCs, which is good,” says Kim. But here in the United States, she adds, “Congress couldn’t even agree on the generalized system of [trade] preferences. That expired at the end of the year because of a fight between two senators over sleeping bags!”In our final segment, I ask Kim what, if anything, LDCs can do to help improve their bargaining position. The key, Kim tells me, is to replicate how advocates promoted the MDGs: by focusing their priorities and developing agencies to monitor and bring awareness to the goals.“I think their success will depend on whether 10,000 people [meeting in Istanbul] can successfully narrow down their asks to a few priorities instead of a long laundry list and then develop a monitoring mechanism. They really need to get organized.”Listen to the Wonkcast to learn more about LDC-IV and to hear Kim’s views on signs of progress in U.S. bilateral trade agreements with South Korea, Columbia and Panama, and check out her blog post: “Emerging U.S. Trade Policy: Any Room for Development?”If you have iTunes, you can subscribe to get new episodes delivered straight to your computer every week.My thanks to Will McKitterick for his production assistance on the Wonkcast recording and for assistance in drafting this blog post.