World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has urgently called on members to demonstrate the necessary political will and flexibility to achieve meaningful outcomes at the Fourteenth Ministerial Conference (MC14), scheduled for March 2026 in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
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During a meeting of the WTO Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC), the Director-General warmly welcomed the unwavering support to the multilateral trading system and the organization, recently expressed by leaders and stakeholders during their mission to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Okonjo-Iweala noted that the leaders not only made frequent references to the WTO, but also emphasized the core value of the multilateral system to provide stability and predictability to their businesses and consumers. "While they recognize the challenges we face, they spoke of a renewed appreciation for our work amid the current turbulence in global trade," he said.
Roadmap and Key Issues
The Director-General urged Members to accelerate their preparatory work. Based on the organization's "road map," the goal is decide before December Which issues are "ripe" and have sufficient convergence to be brought to MC14 for ministerial action? Okonjo-Iweala was clear: "If things are not ripe, we should not pursue them... If we cannot adequately prepare certain dossiers here, we should not expect ministers... to be able to resolve these issues."
Among the main topics on the agenda, the Director General mentioned the need to receive opinions on the prospects for results in farming and the completion of negotiations on Additional provisions for the Fisheries Subsidies Agreement, in addition to the ongoing work on development and issues related to the least developed countries.
Pragmatic Skepticism in Agriculture
In his report on the agricultural negotiations, Ambassador Ali Sarfraz Hussain (Pakistan), president of the negotiations, said a "pragmatic" mood among members. "Most don't expect a breakthrough at MC14, as commitment has waned and negotiations have made little progress since MC13," he said.
However, Ambassador Hussain stressed that almost all members They consider that the Agriculture must be part, in one way or another, of the overall outcome of MC14Options under consideration range from an outline of post-MC14 work, a political declaration of commitment, incorporating key elements on agriculture and food security into an outcome document, to a package of "early results" to help the most vulnerable members address the challenges of food insecurity.
