WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION   
WT/GC/W/646 
15 November 2011 
 (11-5882) 
General Council Original:   English 
  
 
IMPROVING AND FACILITATING THE WTO ACCESSION PROCESS  
FOR DEVELOPING AND LEAST-DEVELOPED COUNTRIES 
 
Communication from the African Group  
 
 
The following communication is being circulated at  the request of the delegation of Kenya on 
behalf of the African Group.  At the request of th e General Council Chairman, it is to be discussed in 
a consultative process undertaken by Deputy-Director General Jara.  
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Accessions are very important for the WTO as an institution and for the multilateral trading 
system that it oversees.  Accessions allow the WTO to fulfill its goal of universality of membership 
and the inclusion of the majority of global commerce under its multilateral rules-based system. 
Currently, 30 countries are in the process of nego tiating their terms of accession to the WTO, 17 of 
them are developing countries and 12 are LDCs.   
There was strong concurrence amongst Members on the importance of accessions in 
broadening and strengthening the WTO as well as on the importance of the grant of technical 
assistance to developing and least-developed count ries at all stages of the accession process.  
Acceding to the WTO would contribute to enha nce economic reforms undertaken by developing 
acceding countries to better integrate into the trade multilateral system.  However, for these reforms to 
be truly lasting, and beneficial to the population of the country, accession to the WTO must be a welfare enhancing process.  That is why it is important that during accession negotiations the principles of special and differential treatment a nd less-than-full reciprocity applied in favour of 
acceding developing countries and LDCs. 
 
While accession issues are not part of the ne gotiating mandate of the Doha Programme of 
Work, acceding developing countries including the LD Cs have repeatedly emphasized the need to 
improve and streamline the WTO accession process. In fact, LDCs are still of the view that effective 
implementation of the 2002 accession guidelines can contribute to facilitating their accession process.  
 
The lack of clear rules on the accession pro cess, the absence of pre-established, objective 
criteria for membership and an asymmetric bargaining  structure in negotiations have resulted in deep 
commitments being undertaken by acceding countri es. This approach has severely limited acceding 
countries’ policy flexibilities. It is also worrying that in many cases the obstacles and delays that are 
encountered by some developing countries in their ef forts to join the WTO are not technical in nature 
but are rather based on considerations and issues that are unrelated to trade or economic policy. 
 
The type of problems outlined above, which have been repeatedly brought to the attention of 
the General Council by our Group, raise crucial systemic questions. Therefore, it would seem 
important to provide Members the opportunity to address the Ministerial conference on the issue of 
accession. WT/GC/W/646 
Page 2  
 
  We acknowledge the efforts being made in the recent past by the General Council, the 
Director-General and the Secretariat to improve the general situation of the accessions mechanism, 
but much more remains to be done.  The African  Group express the urgent need to engage in a 
substantial discussion aimed at improving the existing  institutional mechanisms with the objective of 
providing the opportunity to acceding developing  countries to make their views on the accession 
process known to Members. Progress reports periodi cally sent to the General Council would aid the 
transparency around those views and concerns.   
We believe that such engagement could provide more guarantees that WTO accession will 
serve as an effective tool to initiate reforms in  developing economies around the world and integrate 
them successfully in the trade mainstream; while affording acceding countries the flexibilities 
essential to achieving their development goals.  
Member states should consider the possibility of making commitments by acceding countries 
especially LDCs more precise by setting benchmarks for market access and other commitments, for 
instance, based on average tariff and services co mmitments undertaken by existing developing 
countries members, including least developed country members.
  Developing countries and all LDCs 
should be automatically entitled to special  and differential treatment provisions. 
 
Given that the approaching Ministerial Conferen ce will be dealing with systemic issues we 
believe that the accession process needs to be on the agenda of the conference for Ministerial 
guidance.   
 
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PROPOSED DECISION FOR THE 8TH WTO MINISTERIAL 
CONFERENCE ON ACCESSIONS 
  
Ministers , 
 
Noting para 48 of Doha declaration, that open negotia tion to all members of the WTO; and States and 
separate customs territories currently in the proces s of accession and those that inform members, at a 
regular meeting of the General Council, of their inte ntion to negotiate the terms of their membership 
and for whom an accession working party is established.   
Recalling paragraph 59 of the Hong Kong Declar ation reaffirming strong commitment  of Members to 
make the WTO truly global in scope and to give the priority to the ongoing accessions with a view to 
concluding them as rapidly and smoothly as possible.  
 
Stressing the importance of facilitating and accelerating the accession negotiations of least-developed 
countries, taking due account of the guidelines on LDC accession adopted by the General Council in 
December 2002. 
 
Recalling  also the Document related to the communication from the Informal Group of Developing 
Countries on the WTO Accession process (ref. WT /GC/W/611 of the 16 October 2009); and the 
Chairman's Summary of the Seventh Ministerial Conference, underlining the strong convergence 
amongst members states on the importance of accessions in broadening and strengthening the WTO. 
  WT/GC/W/646 
 Page 3 
 
 
  Hereby decide to 
 
Systematically entitle  acceding developing countries and al l LDCs to special and differential 
treatment provisions;   
 
Expedite and facilitate  the accession of developing countries, especially LDCs by not subjecting 
them to conditionalities inconsistent with their levels of development; 
 
Fully operationalize  the guidelines on the accession of LD Cs adopted by the WTO members on 
December 2002;   
Not request  acceding LDCs countries to negotiate concessions and commitments that go beyond 
those made by the LDCs members of the WTO;   
Submit acceding countries to purely trade-related tec hnical, rather than political considerations;  
 
Not compel  developing countries in the process of accessi on to make concessions incompatible with 
their level of development, and that go beyond  the commitments undertaken by developing WTO 
members;   
Provide the technical assistance  that is necessary to complete the accession process of developing 
countries, especially LDCs, to the WTO, before, during and after their accession; 
 
Set benchmarks  for market access and other commitments  made by acceding countries, especially 
LDCs, based on average tariff and services commi tments undertaken by developing and LDCs 
counties members at comparable levels of development;  
Mandate the General Council to review Article XII of  the Marrakech Agreement, establishing the 
WTO, to recommend ways to improve systemic tr ansparency on the accession processes and to report 
back to following Ministerial on the results.  The review will include inter alia  recommendations on 
improving transparency and the elaboration of syst em-wide criteria and benchmarks for the accession 
of developing countries and LDCs.  
 
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