THE ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva last week failed to make any progress on the agenda that is politically correctly named the Doha Development Agenda (DDA).

Interestingly, the failure to produce a tangible outcome coincides with the 10th anniversary of the debacle in Seattle when popular discontent aborted the ministerial deliberations.

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy’s “spin” was to claim that the meeting revealed political energy. However, the reality is that there is no political will anywhere for further multilateral trade liberalisation because it has reached the limits to which developed countries are willing to yield sovereignty and, with few exceptions, developing countries have not realised the much touted benefits. Indeed, even regional efforts at trade liberalisation appear to have run out of steam, compared to the 1980s and 1990s.

Our view is that these long-term difficulties have now been compounded by the global economic crisis which resurrected the sleeping giant of protectionism.

The fundamental mistake, we believe, was to initiate an over-ambitious round of trade negotiations so soon after the establishment of the WTO. The size of the agenda was intended to provide something for everyone to buy into, but in reality it became too technically and diplomatically complex. There were too many new issues, some of which belong outside the WTO. If there is to be any chance of momentum, the DDA must be drastically scaled down to a manageable number of issues.

The Caribbean Community (Caricom) position was no trade liberalisation unless it involved permanent special and differential treatment for small vulnerable economies.

This stance is driven by a coalition of the unwilling led by outmoded academics, ultra nationalists and protection-seeking businesses. The mantra of compensation for the erosion of preferential trade arrangements was articulated with the passion of the aggrieved. It fell on deaf ears as the European Union and the Latins finalised a settlement of the banana dispute without the slightest twinge of conscience. We left with our moral outrage intact and our coffers empty.

The call for compensation was met with donor fatigue tired of the argument that we are too small to compete. The rich would rather give money to those living on US$2 per day than those with middle income status. This rebuff has prompted a change in strategy, proclaimed as a “new model for development”. It consists of preferential treatment for exports, debt relief and aid for climate change. What is new?

The new platform for mendicancy, it now seems, will be aid handouts to deal with the effects of climate change. It is an ingenious plan. Economic vulnerability is a matter of interpretation, but the environmental vulnerability of coastlines and forests is a fact. There is angst in the developed countries over their role in exacerbating climate change, which will disproportionately harm developing countries, hence the guilt motivation for providing aid. And given the glacial pace of climate change, a properly orchestrated campaign should yield benefits to the Caricom countries long into the future. Brilliant!

Except that what Caricom really needs is a strategy of economic development based on what we can do for ourselves, not what others can do for us. Part of this strategy must be a forward-looking trade agenda focused on what we could gain and not what we would lose.