OWG Proposed Target 10.a
RATING: FAIR One reason is that preferential markets access for LDCs, while it might benefit the so-called ‘least-developed countries’ group (LDCs), it could hurt, through trade diversion, other developing countries including other low-income countries (LICs); and not all LDCs are LICs. The World Bank-defined LICs not in the UN-defined LDC group are Kenya, DR Korea, Tajikistan, Zimbabwe, and there are 17 LDCs that are not low-income countries.
The second reason for giving this goal a FAIR rating is that encouraging developing countries to commit in WTO agreements to less reform than high-income countries (HICs) is not only denying prospective trade gains to HICs but, far more importantly, it permits developing countries to continue to miss out on crucial poverty alleviating prospective gains from trade policy reform.
Setting the Right Global Goals
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You can read about our prioritization project, setting smart, cost-effective goals in this op-ed published around the world including Turkey, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Uganda, South Korea, Costa Rica and the Philippines.
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In our recent report, not just the target above, but all 169 targets have been assessed by 60 teams of the world’s top economists. The targets have been categorized into five ratings based on evidence of economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits. While we applaud that the UN Open Working Group's final outcome document contains 43 fewer targets than the previous document, we are concerned that many targets have simply been combined, therefore reducing the number of both phenomenal and poor targets assessed according to our cost-benefit analysis. Our new assessment includes suggestions for how these can be improved as reported in this article by the Financial Times.