WT/GC/W/871  
 
26 April 2023  
(23-2954) Page: 1/2 
General Council  Original: English  
 
  
IMPROVING INCLUSIVENESS BY REVIEWING AND  EVALUATING EXTERNAL ENGAGEMENT  
COMMUNICATION FROM COLOMBIA; ISRAEL; THE PHILIPPINES;  THE SEPARATE CUSTOMS 
TERRITORY  OF TAIWAN, PENGHU, KINMEN AND MATSU ; AND THE UNITED STATES  
The following communication, dated 26 April 2023, is being circulated at the request of the 
delegation s of Colombia,  Israel; the Philippines; the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, 
Kinmen and Matsu; and the United States . 
 
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1.  The Preamble to the Marrakesh Agreement recognizes that trade should be conducted  with a 
view towards wider purpose s – raising living standards, ensuring full employment, and increasing  
real incomes and demand  – while also recognizing that we should seek the  optimal balance necessary 
to fulfil our objective of ensuring sustainable development.  
2.  The WTO was established in part to provide a forum for Members to engage with each other to 
improve our understanding of h ow trade relations can support these broader economic and social 
objectives  in pursuit of sustainable development . Recent  global challenges  bring to the fore front the 
need to consider the broadest range of viewpoints to ensure that multilateral  policy discussions and 
deliberations  capture the complexity  of cross-cutting issues and the differential impacts on diverse 
sets of stakeholders  and interested persons.  
3.  WTO Members are currently discussing ways  to ensure the organization 's future work is relevan t 
and contributes to  confronting  local and  global challenges  as part of our post -MC12 work . Therefore , 
the co-sponsors believe it may be  appropriate for Members to  reflect on the adequacy of our current 
practices of engage ment with stakeholders  who are  likewise confronting these  same  global 
challenges  and are impacted by our actions at the WTO . 
4.  Our reflection s may draw on practices and Members ' experience s with inclusive  external  
engagement in other international organizations  that may be relevant to consider in the context of 
improving our work in the WTO. For example:  
• The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are frequently referenced in 
discussions  among WTO Members . The SDGs reflect an interconnectedness and shared 
responsibility for action across many aspects of our societ ies with cooperation  and 
coordination required  from governments, non -governmental organizations, business es and 
civil society . SDG  17 is explicit in incorporating dive rse cross -sectoral stakeholders in policy 
dialogues .1 Most United Nations organizations have incorporated and internalized 
multi-stakeholder engagement as part of their everyday work . WTO Members may want to  
examine the policies and practices of the Unite d Nations system and identify for further 
discussion any practices they find relevant . 
 
1 Enhance the global partnership for sustainable development, complemented by multi -stakeholder 
partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the 
achievement of the sustainable development goals in all countries, in particular developing countries . 
Encourage and promote effective public, public -private and civil society partnerships, building on the 
experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships . WT/GC/W/871  
 
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  • Most of the world 's development assistance organizations, both bilateral and multilateral, 
have likewise developed  innovative and sustainable  multi-stakeholder engagemen t 
mechanisms to improve the delivery of development assistance and to ensure that outcomes 
can be comprehensively evaluated  and that they achieve multifaceted objectives . 
• The WTO 's Public Forum and Aid -for-Trade Initiative  are two examples of broad external 
engagement mechanisms used by WTO Members to gain wider perspectives on issues of 
interest  across Members . Most WTO Committees benefit from the perspectives shared by 
the International and Regional Organizations granted O bserver status . Committees  also hold 
thematic sessions or Members organize individually sponsored events which enrich the 
Memberships ' understanding on current global issues . However, these mechanisms may not 
be sufficient . Multi-stakeholder events that di scuss issues at the heart of the WTO 's mandate 
increasingly take place outside the WTO, and those voices are heard by only a small subset 
of Members, if at all.  
5.  Despite success in some areas , opportunities for sustained multi-stakeholder engagement at the 
WTO and within WTO Committees appear to significantly lag global best practice as established by 
other i nternational organizations , international financial institutions , and development assistance 
providers.  
6.  The co -sponsors are interested in reviewing and evaluating how Members  may better  use the 
WTO as a convening forum for engagement with diverse stakeholders and interested persons 
impacted by global  trade challenges . We are interested in hearing from Members what their 
experience has been with  regard to external engagement in the conduct of  committee and body 
work, with multi-stakeholder dialogues, and other opportunities they have had to solicit and 
incorporate diverse  stakeholder  interests and perspectives . We seek to understand what they 
perceive works, and what approaches are less effective . We intend to initiate an informal, 
Member -driven dialogue as a first step  to solicit the interests and perspectives of other Me mbers on 
multi-stakeholder engagement  and to identify overlapping interests  in search for common ground in 
order to strengthen the Organization 's relevance . We look forward to engaging with all Members in 
this dialogue.  
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