Mendy Lerato Lusaba, founder of the Domestic Workers Association of Zimbabwe and winner of the ILO Skills Innovation Challenge, has big plans to improve the life of domestic workers in her country. Read her story on our new Voices multimedia (...)
WTO members have agreed that the organization’s Twelfth Ministerial Conference (MC12) will take place in the week of 29 November 2021 in Geneva, Switzerland. The timing and venue were endorsed at a meeting of the WTO’s General Council on 1 (...)
Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala welcomed civil society’s plea for a successful conclusion to the fisheries subsidies negotiations, illustrated through a fish ice sculpture set up by a coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in front of the WTO headquarters on 1 March. Dr (...)
Speaking at a General Council meeting on 1 March, Deputy Director-General Alan Wolff welcomed Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on her first day as Director-General. He said that 2021 holds great promise for the WTO and looked forward to a very positive future for the organization under DG Okonjo-Iweala’s (...)
Addressing the WTO General Council immediately after taking office on 1 March, Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala called on members to “do things differently” to achieve reforms necessary to keep the WTO relevant, starting with swift action to curb harmful fisheries subsidies, and to help scale (...)
Speaking to heads of WTO member delegations on 25 February, Deputy Director-General Alan Wolff urged them to build on their warm welcome for incoming Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala by working with her to deliver much-needed reforms to the WTO. “Enthusiasm, optimism and hope need to be (...)
Japan has contributed over CHF 160,000 in 2021 to help build the trading capacities of developing countries and least-developed countries (LDCs). This donation to the WTO’s DDA Global Trust Fund will finance training workshops aimed at helping government officials to better understand and (...)
The Negotiating Group on Rules concluded another cluster of fisheries subsidies meetings on 19 February. During the week-long series of meetings members discussed special and differential treatment for developing and least-developed country members, rules for how panels should handle fisheries (...)
At a formal meeting of the Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) on 23 February 2021, WTO members continued their discussions on a proposal for a temporary waiver of certain TRIPS obligations in response to COVID-19. While members were unable to reach a (...)