PRESS RELEASE
PRESS/276
27 February 2002
(02-1012)
WTO/IADB to cooperate on trade-related technical assistance
programs for Latin American and Caribbean countries
World Trade Organization Director-General Mike  Moore and Inter-American Development Bank
President Enrique V. Iglesias today (27 Febr uary 2002) signed a memorandum of understanding,
under which their institutions will seek to deepen cooperation to provide technical assistance on trade
negotiations and capacity-building to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The document was signed at the IADB’s headquarters in Washington DC, following a meeting of
Latin American and Caribbean trade and finance officials on the challenges their region faces inmultilateral negotiations and commitments under WTO agreements, and in negotiating and
implementing the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA).
In order to help member countries meet their multilateral trade challenges, the WTO and the IADB
will step up their joint efforts to assist them to st rengthen their capacity to fully participate in the
multilateral trading system.
The importance of capacity-building was highlighted  in the recent Doha Ministerial Declaration, in
which WTO members sought to place the priorities and interests of developing countries and least
developed countries at the heart of the WTO’s work program.
The WTO believes that the memorandum could serve as a model for regional development banks to
support their borrowing members countries through technical assistance and capacity-buildingprograms that will allow them to play a larger role in the Doha Development Agenda.
Under the memorandum, the WTO and the IADB will work to establish joint programs to support,
among other activities, regional and subregional workshops and meetings, training courses, and tool
kits for trade negotiators, distance learning courses and analysis of trade policy and multilateral
negotiations issues.
The WTO and the IADB will also consider cooperating on technical assistance programs to
strengthen Latin American and Caribbean countries’ capacity in trade-related areas pertaining to the
environment, competition, government procurement, investments and trade facilitation.
In recent years the IADB has collaborated with the WTO through the bank’s Buenos Aires-based
Institute for Integration of Latin America and the Caribbean, which has financed WTO training
courses for trade negotiators from IADB borrowing member countries.PRESS/276
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“It is clear that Latin American and Caribbean countries need to build capacity and rationalize their
resources if they are to get the most out of the negotiations — both for the FTAA and WTO — for
which deadlines are the same,” Mr Moore told the meeting. “One key to a successful trade round will
be technical assistance and capacity-building — helping developing countries and least developed
countries to integrate into the multilateral trading system and participate fully in the negotiations.”
Mr Moore emphasized the need to coordinate with all the specialist institutions that are active in the
trade area. And he stressed the WTO Secretariat’s strategic role in promoting cooperation, joint
technical assistance and capacity-building, notin g that the organization saw itself as a “clearing-
house” or repository of information for WTO-related technical assistance.
Noting that he had been pursuing coherence issues since taking office in 1999, Mr Moore said the
memorandum closely reflected the two organisations’  joint priorities in capacity-building following
the Doha Development Agenda. “This is a model that can and should be replicated in other regions,”
he said, describing it as “an important step forward.”
ENDS