Making NAMA Work: Supporting Adjustment and Development

NAMA liberalisation alone will not be sufficient to achieve the development goals of the Doha Round. The structure of developing countries’ economies and weaknesses in their infrastructure and institutions mean that adjustment to liberalisation is often costly and export responses slow. To make NAMA work, developing countries will need technical and financial support to raise their ability to adapt to greater openness and globalisation pressures and to increase their export capabilities. Although developing countries should decide how to raise their ability to adjust and to increase exports, bilateral donors and multilateral agencies will need to fund NAMA support programmes. The WTO, however, is not the appropriate or competent international agency to provide or disburse such funding. It can provide technical advice and offers a negotiating vehicle for industrial countries to signal that the development aims of the Doha Round are recognised in substantive terms. If industrial countries support developing countries’ NAMA‐related adjustment costs in addition to offering NAMA tariff cuts, the chances of a successful Doha agreement and genuine pro‐development outcomes will be boosted significantly.