Role of-wto-in-promoting-un-sustainable-development-goals

1. Role of World Trade Organization in Promoting United
Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals
By
Dr. Shalini Bariar - Associate Professor, Thakur Institute of
Management Studies and Research
&
Mr. Manish Tripathi – President, Democracy Foundation
Presented During
National Conference on
Aligning Business Strategy with CSR for Sustainability
on
11 & 12 April 2017 1

2. INTRODUCTION
• At the United Nations Sustainable Development
Summit on 25 September 2015, more than 150
world leaders adopted the new 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development
• The Sustainable development goals (SDG) are a set
of 17 "Global Goals“
• SDGs aspire to eradicate poverty, hunger and
inequality, take suitable action on climate change
and the environment, improve access to health
and education, build strong institutions and
partnerships, and more
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3. INTRODUCTION
• The SDGs are built upon the foundations and
experiences of Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) which ended in 2015
• Today UN is one of the leading global organizations
which are at the centre of creating a peaceful and
prosperous world
• It would be apt to say that UN runs the world
largest corporate social responsibility (CSR)
programme benefiting the billions of people across
geographies
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4. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
This study has been carried out to study the role played by
the World Trade Organization in fulfilling the United
Nations sustainable development goals.
SUB OBJECTIVES
1. To study MDGs and appraise its performance
2. To study the role of international trade in promoting
UN SDGs
3. To study the sustainable practices of WTO
4. To link the objectives of UN SDGs to the practices of
WTO
5. To study the effectiveness of aid for trade programme
initiated by WTO in supporting UN SDGs 4

5. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The research studies the UN MDGs in detail and does
the review of the programme outcomes. Further, the
SDGs and its objectives are studied. WTO objectives
which relate to SDGs are outlined. The research relies
on the data and reports from WTO. With the help of
this information, the study tried to correlate the UN
SDGs with the objectives and practices of WTO.
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6. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION
The research main contribution is to correlate the
practices of WTO with the objectives of UN SDGs. The
study highlights strong coupling between these two
intergovernmental organizations. The study has
strong policy implications and it calls for close
cooperation with UN and WTO to fulfil formers SDGs.
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7. MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
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8. MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
• The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were
the eight international development goals for the
year 2015 that had been established following the
Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000,
following the adoption of the United Nations
Millennium Declaration
• All 189 United Nations member states at that time,
and at least 22 international organizations,
committed to help achieve the following
Millennium Development Goals by 2015
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10. APPRAISAL OF MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
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11. GOAL 1: ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY AND
HUNGER
• Extreme poverty has weakened significantly over
the last two decades due to efforts of MDGs.
• In 1990s, nearly half of the population in the
developing world lived on less than $1.25 a day;
that proportion dropped to 14% in 2015.
• Globally, the number of people living in extreme
poverty has declined by more than half, falling
from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836 million in 2015.
Most headway has occurred since 2000.
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12. GOAL 2: ACHIEVE UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION
• The primary school net registration rate in the
developing countries has reached 91% in 2015, up
from 83% in 2000.
• The number of out-of-school children of primary
school age globally has dropped by almost half, to
an estimated 57 million in 2015, down from 100
million in 2000.
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13. GOAL 3: PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY AND
EMPOWER WOMEN
• Many more girls are now in school with respect to
15 years ago.
• The developing economies as a whole have
attained the target to eradicate gender disparity in
primary, secondary education.
• In Southern Asia, only 74 girls were enrolled in
primary school for every 100 boys in1990. Today,
103 girls are enrolled for every 100 boys.
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14. GOAL 4: REDUCE CHILD MORTALITY
• The global under-five death rate has dropped by
more than half, dropping from 90 to 43 deaths per
1,000 live births between 1990 and 2015.
• Despite population growth in the developing
nations, the number of deaths of children under
five has declined from 12.7 million in 1990 to
almost 6 million in2015 internationally.
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15. GOAL 5: IMPROVE MATERNAL HEALTH
• Since 1990, the maternal mortality ratio has
declined by 45% worldwide, and most of the
decrease has occurred since 2000.
• In Southern Asia, the maternal death ratio
declined by 64% between1990 and 2013, and in
sub-Saharan Africa it fell by 49%.
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16. GOAL 6: COMBAT HIV/AIDS, MALARIA AND OTHER
DISEASES
• New HIV infections fell by roughly 40% between
2000 and 2013,from a projected 3.5 million cases
to 2.1 million.
• By June 2014, 13.6 million people living with HIV
were getting antiretroviral therapy globally, an
huge rise from just 800,000 in 2003.
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17. GOAL 7: ENSURE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
• Ozone-depleting ingredients have been almost
eliminated since 1990, and the ozone layer is
anticipated to recuperate by the middle of this
century.
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18. GOAL 8: DEVELOP A GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP FOR
DEVELOPMENT
• Development assistance from industrialized
countries augmented by 66%in actual terms
between 2000 and 2014, reaching $135.2 billion.
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20. OBJECTIVES OF WTO THAT SUPPORT UN SDGs
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21. 1- LEVERAGING INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TO
STIMULATE DEVELOPMENT AND REDUCE POVERTY
• Increase Aid for Trade support for developing,
small and poor economies, in particular the least-
developed countries. They support the SDG 8.
• Implement the rule of differential treatment for
developing economies, in particular LDCs. They are
a beneficial tool for the attainment of SDG 10.
• Substantially increase the exports of developing
economies, in particular with a view to increasing
the LDC share of global export. They help boost
the fulfilment of SDG 17.
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22. 2- LEVERAGING INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AS PART
OF A LONG-TERM POLICY AGAINST HUNGER
• The SDGs recognize that a more open and well-
functioning global agrarian market is an
indispensable component of a wider plan to end
hunger, achieve food security and better nutrition,
and promote sustainable agriculture.
• They are in line with SDG 2 which promotes for an
end to trade limitations and biases in world
agricultural marketplaces.
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23. 3- VICTORY BOTH FOR INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AND
THE NATURE
• The safeguarding and sustainable use of the oceans,
seas and marine assets is a vital component in
stimulating sustainable development.
• The UN’s SDG 14 particularly calls for a ban by 2020
on “certain forms of fisheries subsidies that contribute
to overcapacity and overfishing, and to eliminate
subsidies that contribute to illegal, unreported and
unregulated fishing”. Thus the WTO’s objective will
enable to achieve SDG 14 faster.
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24. 4- LEVERAGING WTO BARGAINING POWER TO
SAFEGUARD PUBLIC HEALTH CARE ON TOP
• UN’s SDG 3 on ensuring healthy lives and
promising wellbeing includes the target of
providing “access to affordable essential medicines
and vaccines”.
• It evokes the 2001 Doha Declaration on the TRIPS
Agreement and Public Health, which encourages
the right to use to the full the provisions in the
TRIPS Agreement regarding flexibilities to defend
public health, and, in particular, provide access to
medications for all.
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25. 5- SUSTAINABLE TOURISM AND THE SDGS BACK TO TOP
• WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)
includes inter alia the trade-related aspects of the
sustainable tourism.
• SDG 8 demands for policies to promote sustainable
tourism that creates employments and encourages
local culture and goods.
• SDG 12 on sustainable consumption and production
patterns focuses the importance of developing and
applying tools to ensure sustainable development
influences for sustainable tourism.
• SDG 14 seeks to augment the commercial benefits to
small island developing states and least developed
countries from the sustainable use of oceanic
resources, including through sustainable
administration of fisheries and tourism.
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26. 6- LEVERAGING GLOBAL BUSINESS TO HELP PROPAGATE
ENERGY EFFICIENT TOOLS
• SDG 7 emphasizes the significance of “international
cooperation to facilitate access to clean energy research
and technology, including renewable energy, energy
efficiency and advanced and cleaner fossil-fuel
technology”.
• Among the innumerable words of collaboration in the field
of technology is the abolition of obstructions that hamper
the movement of power efficient goods and services
between nations.
• Open business across the borders in such goods and
services should make them inexpensive and more available
to producers and buyers around the globe, dropping the
cost of accomplishing key environmental safeguard
objectives in developing and developed countries.
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27. 7- AUGMENTING INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
COLLABORATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
• The UN defines international trade as “an engine for
inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction, that
contributes to the promotion of sustainable
development”.
• The acceptance of Agenda 2030 obligates UN member
states to continue to encourage business liberalization
up to 2030 to help exploit the support of trade to the
success of the sustainable development goals.
• This proves that UN itself agrees that its goals cannot
be fulfilled without the support of international trade,
promoting which is the key objective of WTO.
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28. AID FOR TRADE – THE FLAGSHIP PROGRAMME OF WTO
TO BRIDGE INCOME GAP
• Encourage additional flows of Aid for Trade from
bilateral, regional and multilateral donors to support
requests for trade-related capacity building from
beneficiary countries
• Encourage mainstreaming of trade into national
development strategies by partner countries.
• Provide technical training to LDCs
• Offer trade concessions to developing and under-
developed economies
• Facilitate trade credits to poorer economies
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29. AID FOR TRADE – RESULTS
• Since the launch in December 2005, donors have
disbursed a total of USD 264.5 billion in official
development assistance and an additional USD
190 billion in other official flows for financing
trade related programmes in developing countries.
• More than three-quarters of total aid for trade has
financed projects in four sectors that are closely
related to cutting trade costs; transport and
storage (29%), energy generation and supply
(21%), agriculture (18%) and banking (10%).
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30. AID FOR TRADE – RESULTS
• Middle-income countries received, in addition, USD
190 billion in trade-related other official flows mainly
for infrastructure and private sector development.
• The LDCs received 10 USD per capita in aid for trade,
more than double the average.
• The AfT programme has helped the poorer and small
economies in reducing trade costs and helped in their
inclusive and sustainable growth thereby forming a
major component of the SDGs.
• AfT has helped LDCs develop trade infrastructure that
will enable them sustained development in the time to
come.
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31. RESULTS OF STUDY
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32. RESULTS OF STUDY
• The success of international business is highly
linked to the success of WTO
• International trade is the central medium through
which UN SDGs can be fulfilled
• WTO plays the central role in the fulfilment of UN
SDGs and the performance of WTO is highly linked
to the success of SDGs
• The Aid for Trade programme has immensely
benefited the LDCs in building infrastructure that
enables their sustainable development
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33. DIRECTION FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
• To study the performance of SDGs on individual
countries like India, etc.
• To evaluate the performance of individual SDGs
with respect to particular class of people like those
below poverty line
• To undertake the empirical study between global
trade and its effect on each SDGs objectives
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