WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION   
WT/CFMC/W/51 
19 July 2011  
 
(11-3604) 
 Original:   French 
  
 
DIRECTOR-GENERAL'S CONSULTATIVE FRAMEWORK 
MECHANISM ON COTTON 
 
Communication from Burkina Faso 
 
 
 The following communication, dated 15 July 2011, is being circulated at the request of the delegation of Burkina Faso.  
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STATEMENT BY H.E. AMBASSADOR PROSPER VOKOUMA, 
PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF BURKINA FASO, 
COORDINATING AMBASSADOR OF THE C4 GROUP 
  
1. Let me begin, on behalf of the four co-sponsors of the Sectoral Initiative in Favour of Cotton 
and of all the African cotton-producing countries and the ACP countries, by expressing my sincere thanks to Mr Harsha Vardhana Singh, Deputy Dir ector-General of the WTO, for taking the initiative 
of convening this 15
th Round of the Consultative Framework Mechanism on Cotton. 
2. The cotton issue, as you know, forms the b ackbone of the economies of several African 
countries including the four co-sponsors of the Sect oral Initiative in Favour of Cotton, which are 
classified among the least developed countries. 
3. As the C4 Coordinating Minister said at the 14th Round of the Consultative Framework 
Mechanism on Cotton held on 9 December of last  year, there has been a steady increase from 
one round to the next in the support provided to the African cotton sector by development partners 
and a certain progress in the reforms undertaken  by the African countries to make their 
cotton industry more efficient.  I would theref ore like to thank the community of development 
partners for their constant and renewed support for the African cotton sector, faced as it is with 
enormous and persistent difficulties. 
4. The Third Global Review of Aid for Trade w ill take place on 18 and 19 July.  We could 
hardly ask for a better context to start acting on the instructions given by the WAEMU and 
C4 Ministers at their meeting in Cotonou in November 2010, namely "to take account during the negotiations of the need for a link with th e development aspect of the cotton issue, inter alia , through 
the WTO Director-General's Consultative Framework Mechanism on Cotton and the 
Aid-for-Trade initiative … " and " … to come up with  a suitable framework for the development of a 
joint multidimensional and integrated project to  the submitted to the development partners". 
5. As announced during the last round, the C4 w ill therefore soon be submitting a common and 
unifying project to the donor community.  We strongly reaffirm our conviction that our economies are WT/CFMC/W/51 
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  capable of achieving development through cotton,  on condition that the underlying trade policy 
problems are resolved. 
6. Regarding the trade-related aspects, the C4 rea ffirms its support for all of the provisions on 
cotton, in particular paragraphs 54, 55 and 56 in  the Revised Draft Modalities of 6 December 2008. 
7. As a sign of its commitment, since the beginni ng of 2011 the C4 has organized several 
activities, on its own or in partne rship with others, in Geneva, Brussels and Istanbul, namely:  (i) a 
brainstorming workshop entitled "Cotton - dis pute settlement options", organized by the 
ACP Secretariat on 27 January 201 1 in Geneva;  (ii) a brains torming workshop entitled "Dispute 
settlement:  an asset or a constraint for the nego tiations?  The case of cotton at the WTO", organized 
by the C4 on 12 February 2011 in Geneva;  (iii) a meeting of Brussels- and Geneva-based 
representatives of the ACP cotton-producing countr ies, held on 16 and 17 February 2011 in 
Brussels (Belgium);  and (iv) a "Cotton Day", orga nized as a side event of the Fourth United Nations 
Conference on the Least Developed Countri es on 10 May 2011 in Istanbul (Turkey). 
8. At the same time, WAEMU has engaged in advo cacy, awareness raising and lobbying in the 
wake of the "offensive in favour of cotton" launche d in Cotonou in November 2010, particularly with 
respect to the European Union.  These effo rts have sought to raise awareness among 
European parliamentarians in order to achie ve 100 per cent decoupling of EU domestic support 
measures for the cotton producers of Greece and Spain. 
9. The various presentations and discussions that  took place during these different meetings 
have revealed that there is an alternative for the African cotton-producing countries in their efforts to 
defend the cotton issue, namely the pursuit of the negotiations under the D oha Development Agenda 
(DDA), and recourse,  inter alia , to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism.  On the latter point the 
C4, all of the African cotton-producing countries and the members of the ACP Group reserve the right to resort to that solution if nothing is don e by then to move the cotton issue forward. 
10. On the development-related aspects of the co tton issue, we would like to express renewed 
gratitude to all of the donors at the bilateral, s ubregional, regional and multilateral levels for their 
invaluable and numerous forms of support.  Howeve r, the contributions of  development partners 
under the "development" aspect of cotton would curren tly appear to be more and more seriously out 
of kilter with the needs expressed. 
11. With this in mind, the C4 has chosen to fo cus more closely, in the negotiations, on the 
necessary objective link between the development asp ect of cotton and the Aid-for-Trade initiative, 
and in the future to go beyond the national pr ojects and create a framework conducive to the 
development of multidimensional and integrated joint programmes or projects for submission to 
development partners. 
12. In this same connection, I would like to men tion the Pan-African Meeting on Cotton held in 
Cotonou from 27 to 29 Ju ne 2011 under the auspices of UNCTAD,  which produced the beginnings of 
a consensus on a road map for the cotton sector in Africa for the next ten years, based primarily on 
increased productivity, improving marketing, and in creasing the value added of cotton in Africa.  
Once again, we express our renewed gratitude to th e developing countries that are actively engaged in 
the development and strengthening  of South-South Cooperation. 
13. Finally, the C4 has recently participated ener getically in the consultations in all possible 
formats with all of the other stakeholders in the cotton issue to reach a c onsensus on the three main 
areas of interest to the LDCs (duty- and quota-fr ee market access, cotton and the services waiver) and 
to lay foundations for our work on these issues with a view to agreeing on an early harvest by the 
8th Ministerial Conference next December.  The fact is that the results of these consultations have  WT/CFMC/W/51 
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  been disappointing and the likelihood of achieving a mi ni-package on the three issues of interest to 
the LDCs within that time-frame is growing slimme r and slimmer every day.  We reaffirm that we 
will not accept any decision in December that does not include an LDC package, and that there will 
no LDC package without cotton. 
14. Before concluding, on behalf of Mr P. Arthur Kafando, Minister of Industry, Trade and Crafts 
of Burkina Faso and Coordinator of the C4, I would like to commend Mr Pascal Lamy, his colleagues 
and the entire staff of the WTO Secretariat for th eir availability and their commitment to working 
towards a fair settlement of the cotton issue. 
15. I also congratulate Mr David Walker, outgoing Chairman of the Negotiating Group on 
Agriculture, for all the work he has done during his term, in quadrilatera l meetings and other 
negotiating formats, to produce an agreement on modalities acceptable to all.  And finally, I 
congratulate Deputy Director-General Harsha Vardha na Singh for the skill with which he handled the 
cotton issue and managed the Director-General's  Consultative Framework Mechanism on Cotton. 
16. In conclusion I would ask, on behalf of the C4, that this statement be circulated to Members 
as an official document of the World Trade Organization. 
 
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