. /.  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION   
WT/MIN(11)/20 
16 December 2011 
 (11-6586) 
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE 
Eighth Session Geneva, 15 - 17 December 2011 Original:   English 
 
  
MINISTERIAL DECLARATION OF THE INFORMAL  
GROUP OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 
 
 
The following communication, dated 16 December 2011, is being circulated at the request of 
the Delegation of the Dominican Republic on behalf of the Informal Group of Developing Countries. 
 
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We, Ministers and heads of delegation of the Informal Group of Developing Countries, 
comprised of 120 members, met in Geneva on 15 December 2011 on the occasion of the 8th WTO Ministerial Conference. 
We remain deeply concerned about the serious economic and financial s ituation that affects 
developed and developing economies alike.  We underline the need for a strong, open, predictable and 
fair, rules-based multilateral trading system, and agre e to strengthen and make it more responsive to 
the needs of the developing countries in order to stimulate growth, employment and development.  
We underscore the importance that significant forward movement in the Doha Development 
Round can play in addressing the present global econo mic challenges, and the developmental benefits 
it can bring to our people.  We therefore commit ourselves to the earliest conclusion of the Doha 
Development negotiations in accordance with its  mandate, based on the progress already made. 
We strongly underscore the centrality of devel opment in the Doha Round of negotiations. We 
are disappointed that political commitments to see k an ambitious and balanced conclusion to the 
Round in 2011 did not translate into c oncrete flexible negotiating positions.  
We reaffirm our steadfast commitment to reach  all of the objectives set out in the Doha 
Ministerial Declaration that launched the current ro und of negotiations.  We stand firmly behind the 
principles under which this round was launched includi ng, developmental issues at the centre of the 
work, a single undertaking, transparency and inclus iveness.  We also highlight the importance for 
developing countries of continued reform and liber alization of trade in agricultural products, among 
them cotton.  
We strongly support respect of the principle of single undertaking in achieving the Doha 
development mandate, and stress that any early harvest in areas where consensus arises as provided by paragraph 47 of the Doha Ministerial Declara tion must give priority to development issues, 
particularly LDC specific issues.   
We also subscribe to the view that the WTO is  more than the Doha Round.  We affirm the 
WTO’s role as the guarantor of the multilateral trad ing system, and as a bulwark against all forms of WT/MIN(11)/20 
Page 2  
 
  protectionism, while recognizing the developmental needs, as well as, the full WTO rights and 
obligations of Members.  
In this respect we believe it is important to  strengthen the functioning of the regular bodies 
and mechanisms of the organization, in partic ular, the Committee on Trade and Development shall 
continue to be the focal point and coordinator of  all development related activities in WTO, including 
the implementation of special and differential treatment  provisions.  Furthermore, it is fundamental to 
establish the monitoring mechanism on special and di fferential treatment; as well as to review with a 
view to adopting the proposals contained in Annex C of the Draft Cancun Ministerial Declaration. 
We want to also underscore the importance of ensuring adherence to the principle of full 
participation inclusiveness and transparency (FIT) in all areas of future work in the WTO.  The 
interest of all Members must be adequately reflect ed in the outcomes achieved in the work of this 
organization which can only be obtained through the inclusion of all Members in the negotiating process. 
We reiterate the significance of the Aid for Trade initiative and recognize the progress that 
has been made since its launch in 2005. Financing must be predictable, sustainable, effective and 
untied from conditionalities. Aid for Trade must be demand driven and also take into account the 
regional dimension, involvement of the private sector, effective monitoring and evaluation, and 
mainstreaming at all levels by both donors and r ecipients.  Additionally, due attention should be paid 
to the situation of the more needy Members esp ecially the LDCs and small, vulnerable economies 
without creating a sub-category of Members.   
We thank donors for their continued support to  the Aid for Trade initiative and the WTO’s 
Global Trust Fund, and urge them to increase thei r disbursements while maintaining their current 
levels of commitments.   
We strongly advocate for the reinforcement of the WTO's technical assistance and capacity 
building functions including, among others, increasi ng capacity in developing countries to use dispute 
resolution mechanisms.   
We welcome the accession of the Russian Federati on, Samoa, Vanuatu and Montenegro to the 
organization and reaffirm our support for the early accession of other developing countries.  We stress 
that acceding countries should not be asked to undert ake commitments that go beyond their level of 
development and current WTO rules.  We also welcome as a significant step forward the Draft Decision on LDC Accessions and urge its adoption by Ministers at MC8.  
We welcome and support the adoption by Ministers at MC8 of decisions of particular interest 
to developing countries including the decisions on: the Work Programme on Electronic Commerce, 
the Work Programme on Small Economies, the tr ansition period for LDCs under Article 66.1 of 
TRIPS, LDC Accession, and LDC services waiver. 
We are united in our commitment to continue to forge a rules-based multilateral trading 
system that has development at its core and responds to the needs and expectations of the majority of 
its members which are developing countries.  
 
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