Mohamed El Dahshan
Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us and our sincere apologies for the delay. We’ll try to keep you a few minutes after the event to make up for that. My name is Mohamed El Dahshan. I’m an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, and we are delighted to have you join us for what will be a very interesting conversation. So, on August 31st, which is literally a few days from now, the World Trade Organization Director-General, Roberto Azevêdo, steps down, and eight candidates are currently in the running to succeed him at the helm of the organization that is tasked with ensuring that our global trading system runs smoothly. And perhaps no less importantly, and we’ll talk about this later, that disputes are resolved in a timely and equitable manner.
So, we are delighted to have with us today Mr Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh, who is in the running for the leadership of the organization. Mr Mamdouh is a long-term insider to the GATT and the WTO. He was appointed as a Trade Negotiator at Egypt’s permanent mission to the GATT in 1985. In 1980 he crossed over, he joined the WTO, where he has served for the several – for the following decade in many senior roles within the organization, including being Secretary of the Council for Trade and Services until 2001 and the Head of the Services and Investment Division until 2017.
So, Mr Mamdouh, thank you so much for being with us today.
Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh
Thank you.
Mohamed El Dahshan
This conversation is part of a series of Chatham House conversations on the WTO. So, as a reminder to the audience, the session is on the record. It is livestreamed on our website and it will be hosted for future viewing. So, the way we’re going to proceed, we will begin the one-on-one conversation and I have a number of questions to ask Mr Mamdouh, and after that, we will move on to audience questions. So, to the audience, please feel free to ask questions using the Q&A function at any point during the conversation. I will ask you to not wait until we’ve done – until we finished the one-on-one exchange. At any given point, please ask your questions, my colleague, Thea, will collect them and we will ask them that at the end. So, Hamid, I will now turn to you, then, for our first question, which is, oh, quite unsurprisingly, is can you tell us a bit more why you’re running and what is your vision for the future of the WTO?
Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh
Well, thank you very much, Mohammed, and thank you for the invitation to join your conversation. It’s a very good question, because my candidacy is a very atypical candidacy, as you might notice. The reason why, really, I’ve decided to join and, of course, I’m grateful and humbled by the support and confidence given to me by the Egyptian Government to back this candidacy so enthusiastically, is because I truly believe that the WTO now needs a different kind of leadership. And please do not take this as a statement about my predecessors, at all. They were all colleagues of mine. I have utmost respect for them, but this is more a statement about the unprecedented existential crisis that the system is facing now.
The WTO is facing a stress test that reminds me of the stress test of the GATT when I came to Geneva in 85, when reform was necessary and we turned the GATT into the WTO, through the biggest reform project in the history of the system, which we call the “Uruguay Round”, that transformed the GATT into the WTO. We are facing a similar situation now and I think, for that, the different kind of leadership that I’m talking about is a leadership that combines the authoritative knowledge about the system, how it was created, why it’s put together like that, to be acutely aware of the plumbing inside the system, why we are where we are today, and add to that a diagnostic view of what have we learned from the past 25 years of the life of the WTO?
But it’s not just about the knowledge, Mohamed. This is about, also, how you use the knowledge to develop solutions, how you use the knowledge to move forward to solve problems. And as I say, you know, the reform that the WTO needs is very, very different from the reform of any ministry or any other international organization. This is not about reallocating resources or restructuring departments or country programmes on the field, not at all. WTO reform is about reforming the treaty, reforming the contract, and we know the only way this can be done is through negotiations. That’s where the honest Broker role of the Director-General becomes crucial, and any honest Broker stands on two legs.
One is the authoritative knowledge of what he or she is brokering, and the second is the confidence and trust that the members put into that leader. And for – on the first, I think that is established in terms of knowledge, but on the second, which is the confidence and trust, I have spent the past 30 years of my life, since I left the Egyptian Government, being the trusted Advisor of all WTO members. And I am a candidate who stands at equal distance from all members. I’ve never promoted a particular national agenda. I’m – my agenda is that of the system. So, I stand with a lot of credibility and even after I left the WTO in 2017, I have continued to be the trusted friend for Ambassadors, delegations and governments and capitals in terms of the go to person to seek advice to solve problems, particularly negotiating problems, which are quite complex. So, you put all this together, this is why I’m running. If I can make a difference for the WTO, the system that I spent my life building, that will be an honour.
But let me add one last point here, Mohamed. When I refer to the past, I am in no way suggesting we should repeat the past. We must not repeat the past, but we must learn from it. We must absorb all the lessons. We must not repeat old mistakes that we have done over the past 25 years. And we must learn from our successes, what sort of enabling elements we should be mobilizing for the way forward. So, back to you.
Mohamed El Dahshan
Thank you. So, I mean, allow me to quickly jump on something that you mentioned. You brought up quite a number of issues. You talked about nomination, you talked about political backing, you talked about reforms. I’m going to stay with the last point for a second, because for a lot of people outside the organization, for, shall we say, the educated observer, shall we say, the WTO seems quite frozen since the Doha Development Round, right, to, then, going into its 19th years so far. You – I once heard you say in a conference, in a press conference that, “We all talk about reform, but there’s little said about the kind of reform that we need,” right?
So, I’m going to ask you two things here. One, if it’s so obvious that we need to reform the organization, we need to reform the treaty, one, what – and if that’s so obvious to everyone, why has that not been done already? And the second one, which, obviously, would be how would you go about reforming it? So, the first one is why have we failed to reform it so far, and then, how do we go about reforming it and making sure the WTO is relevant, again, to people’s lives beyond the diplomatic circles, shall we say?
Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh
Very good question. My usual way of trying to solve problems is to have a good diagnostic view first. What is the problem that we’re trying to solve? And my diagnostic view of the WTO, not just the negotiations, because the negotiations is one of the functions, but I would look at the overall situation and see, okay, what happened over the past 25 years? And I look at the design of the system and the WTO system, I’ve drawn the analogy of a tripod. The system is based on three pillars: the dispute settlement function, the negotiating function, and the monitoring and deliberative function.
And the system was designed with this tripod with equal distribution of weight, with balance across the three pillars, but what we have seen over the past 20 years was that two of those pillars have actually failed. The monitoring and deliberative function, as well as the negotiating function, which produce this kind of excessive pressure on the dispute settlement function and that was not sustainable, so it failed as well. And now we have a complete breakdown.
So, why haven’t we actually mobilised the will to do reforms? Good question, because we didn’t have the political will. And why didn’t we have the political will? You see, political will is usually mobilised by two things, it’s either a very, very obvious incentive of a huge gain to be achieved, or a threat of a huge crisis, and I think, now, we are facing the incentive of the latter kind, which is the crisis. We really, now, are facing a situation where the system is threatened to fall apart completely and that’s why I start by saying, “Okay, let’s not let this crisis go to waste. Let’s use the crisis to mobilise all the political will and start with the basics.”
And this brings me back to your second question, “How do we move forward?” I would say start by re-recalling and reconstructing the common purpose behind the system. Why are we here in the WTO? The WTO is never an objective in itself, it’s not. The WTO is there because of a purpose, and that purpose is based on a) trade is terribly important for our economies, for both developed and developing countries; b) the only way to expand trade and expand the benefits from trade is to ensure the stability and predictability of trading conditions. That’s how trade flourishes and that’s how investment decisions are facilitated.
Also, in order to ensure that predictability and stability, we need rules, and this is where the WTO comes in. So, we need the WTO, but it needs reform. Now, how do we approach the reform agenda? We look at where the failures happened and how to resolve them, and everybody’s talking about reform, as I said, but nobody’s talking, really, about the issues. I would say, first, the nature of the reform, we need to understand it, which is through negotiations, because it’s reforming the treaty. But also, I would say this is – it’s about time that we move beyond generalities and mentioning titles and actually look at the issues and look at the substance, because I have noticed that in a lot of conversations over the past couple of months, we conveniently avoid substance by putting it down to technical details, “Oh, the problems are political. These are technical details, I’m sorry.” The problems are substantively very, very complex.
Trade negotiations are a complex process, but also trade issues are gaining complexity. Yeah, just look at an area like digital trade and see the kind of complex trade issues that have come to the negotiating table. For example, reconciling cross-border trade and cross-jurisdictional business with new regulatory measures on protection of privacy or online consumer protection or cybersecurity, we’re feeling that every day. Now, what is the contribution of trade negotiations? In order to make sure that we have rules that would not interfere with the sovereignty of regulators, but at the same time, ensures the least trade restrictiveness of the regulatory tools used.
All these are very complex issues, but we need to revive the other functions in the organization. The deliberative function that I’ve been referring to is the area and it’s the function which should address all those issues of complex nature, clarify them in the minds of different countries and different negotiators, in order to feed into a proper negotiating agenda that would address those issues in an effective way. And the transparency of what governments are doing is terribly important, so that we start the negotiations from an informed basis. That’s why notifications are terribly important.
Countries, members of the WTO, must comply with their notification requirements. All these are important things that, coming together across the three pillars of the tripod, would facilitate the process, going forward. But that’s in terms of substance and we can unpack each of the titles, whether it’s the Appellate Body breakdown and the breakdown in dispute settlement, or whether it’s the negotiating function and how do we revive it? Or whether it’s how you revive the deliberative function, or that sensitive issues of political nature like special and differential treatment, how do we deal with it? It’s creating a lot of tension. The updating the rulebook, whether it’s about subsidies, be it industrial or agricultural subsidies, or whether it’s about digital trade rules, and the list goes on and on and on. It’s about time we move beyond the generalities and start really looking at the substance and not just dismiss the substantive issues simply as technical details, because they’re not. So, let me stop here, and I’m sure there would be other points to pick on the reform process, moving forward, through further questions. So back to you, Mohamed.
Mohamed El Dahshan
Right, well, you brought up quite a number of questions. Yeah, first, I entirely agree that we should never let a good crisis go to waste, right? But that’s the current crisis that we’re in and I’m, kind of, wondering whether – so, right now, for instance, we have a global economic crisis, we have a decline in trade that is quite unprecedented. Next year, we’ll also see similar statistics, and we’ll see, shall we say, mild recovery in trade. We have US-China tensions. We have a bit of a, shall we say, cyclical wave of protectionism in many parts of the world. So, I’m, what I’m wondering is that it’s great to say that we use the crisis to reform the system, at the same time, I am concerned that we would not be able to, sort of, push the two things at the same time. One is resolving the crisis, or figuring out what are the right policies to rescue, really, the global trading system, and, at the same time, getting countries to think of the big picture at the same time, right? So, is there a contradiction here between what needs to be done immediately to respond to the crisis and between getting people to think long-term and more holistically about the future of the organization?
Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh
I think there is no contradiction at all. I would even go further and say it is necessary to have coherence between short-term and long-term and we need to think about short-term and long-term in a – in the right order. And this is why I always start with a common purpose, what is the what is the purpose? We have to be faithful to our common purpose, so that, while we’re in the same boat, we also ensure that we are all rowing in the same direction.
And here, I would start with the political vision and the political vision for the WTO is one that should serve the entire membership and members, different members have different interests. But this is where the political vision comes in, in terms of how do you construct an agenda, a negotiating and a reform agenda? Because they overlap, actually, reform is through negotiations. How do you construct an agenda that would have incentives for all members to come around the table? You cannot pursue the reform through focusing on one element and leaving the others.
We’ve been discussing individual elements in the WTO, but without any progress, because there is no coherent vision, there is no holistic vision. We’ve been talking about developing countries, I mean, S&D, special and differential treatment, with a lot of tension and a lot of emotions. We’ve been talking about the Appellate Body, the collapse of the Appellate Body. We’ve been talking about other things as well, you know, updating the rulebook. But what we need is a political vision that addresses the different interests of different constituencies to bring everyone around the table to have incentives for everyone to come around the table, because the system is there to serve the interests of all.
And I don’t want to be so abstract and so general about it, but just to give you examples, you do have different negotiating priorities. You have some countries in Africa who are really waiting to see what is going to happen on issues of interest to them, such as cotton subsidies, such as agriculture subsidies. There is a member, like India, who would have interests in things like public stockholding and all the concerns around food security, as well as other issues. You have the – Europe has its interests, the US has its interests, China has its interests, as well. Other members, different regions of the world, from Australia, New Zealand, to Canada, well, this is where the political vision comes in. You need an agenda that balances all this.
And the size of the agenda doesn’t matter, by the way, in my view, it’s the balance within the agenda that matters most. And then, when I say we go to the past, not repeat it, but not to make the same mistakes, we should avoid the mistakes we made in the Doha Round. But we should also look at what were the enabling factors? Why did this huge reform project, called the Uruguay Round, succeed in the past? Because there was a political vision behind it, there was a balanced agenda, there was a grand design, whereby textiles and agriculture, which were two sectors of strategic importance to developing countries and which, until then, were left outside the trade liberalisation system of the GATT, were put in the negotiating agenda in return for trade and services and protection of intellectual property on the side of developing countries. And it’s that strategic balance that kept the negotiations going forward, but we preserved that balance as we went forward.
In the Doha Round, that’s not what we did. We had a big agenda with balance inside it, but we did not actually preserve the integrity of that balance as we proceeded with the negotiations. And what happened, really, was a collapse of the negotiating process. So, how to move forward and how to mobilise starts with the common sense and purpose, the political vision and mobilising the right kind of processes, which will depend on the experience and the lessons we have learned from the past. So, back to you, Mohamed.
Mohamed El Dahshan
Thank you for that. I mean, it’s, I feel that it’s always been the case, right, that countries come and bring their own priorities. And a big part of the magic that happens in the background is building that agenda that brings in everyone’s priorities, that makes everyone equally happy, or, as someone once said, that “makes everyone equally unhappy,” right? So, everyone gets to spend time in other people’s priorities.
But you also mentioned the Doha Development Round. So that actually, that’s a very interesting segue. I want to ask a little more about your experience, specifically. Since you’re an insider to the organization, I guess what I’m curious to ask, and I know that people are, is what would have been – so, from your experience, what has been the most challenging – what’s the toughest thing that you’ve had to deal with from within the WTO? So, I want to know a little bit more about your personal experience. What has been the toughest challenge you’ve dealt with, whether it has been successfully or unsuccessfully resolved, but please give us that example, it’d be really interesting to hear the process and your thought process behind it?
Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh
Okay, well, that’s an interesting question, which brings to my mind some valuable memories and lessons. We suffered the imbalance in the Doha Round from obsessing with agriculture for several years and neglecting other items. And within the market access negotiations, there were negotiations on market access in agriculture and negotiations on market access in non-agriculture products, industrial products, and there were negotiations on market access and services. We advanced on agriculture, to a large extent, we advanced, also, on non-agricultural, but we haven’t advanced on services. Because services negotiations are quite complicated, because of the diversity of services sectors, but also, because of the government structures and capitals, that diversity actually makes services negotiations, fall within the domain of many ministries and regulatory agencies, from financial services to telecommunications, to transport, to energy, to distribution, and the list goes on and on.
So, we reached a point where there was advances on agriculture and non-agriculture products, but there was no progress on services. And countries interested in advancing services in negotiations said, “Hang on a second, we’re not going to advance until we know what we’re getting in return.” And an idea that came up for the first time in the history of trade negotiations was put forward by the European Union at the time, Commissioner, so, Peter Mandelson came and asked for a signalling conference on services. A conference in which members participating in the negotiations would sit around a table at ministerial level and exchange promises about what they’re going to commit by way of liberalisation or new commitments in services.
That was the first time in the history of trade negotiations where you heard about a signalling conference, what was that? So, the question came to me, as Director of Services and Investment, “How do we organise a signalling conference?” And that was a very interesting experience, a very interesting experiment to go through in terms of organising negotiating processes. Why? Because it was politically very delicate. You would have 30 Ministers sitting around a table, promising each other on new commitments, but you cannot have any of them actually quoted outside the room. You don’t quote what they say. You just internalise this and factor it into your trade-off calculations. Now, the role of the Secretariat, which was providing guidance for the process, was to organise the process, but also organise how you report on it to the rest of the membership. How do you report on substance without actually saying who said what? But at the same time, you reflect a certain degree or a certain level of substantive progress, which would enable other areas of the negotiations to move forward, because this is what we are having by way of progress on the services negotiations.
Now, without getting into too many details here, that was one of the experiences that I remember very well of how to walk this tightrope of a balancing act between complicated substance and political messaging, and how do you create a certain level of confidence that would allow the negotiations to move forward? That signalling conference actually was a high watermark in the negotiations. After that, the Doha Round stumbled for other reasons, but that was one of the experiences that I think was worth registering in terms of the problems and in terms of creative solutions. So, back to you.
Mohamed El Dahshan
Thank you. Thank you for that. I very much enjoyed hearing that. It’s the processes of a – the inside processes of the WTO are always a bit of a black box for the rest of us, so I appreciate you expanding on this. Alright, I think we’re about 25/27 minutes in, so, in the interests of time, I’m going to ask one more question and then I’m going to turn to questions from the audience, if that’s okay.
So, the last question I have for you before we start calling on our colleagues and guests is about the running process, right. So, you are currently running against two other African candidates and one other Arab candidate, right? All of them have equally remarkable credentials, all of them are very respected people in their fields. So, I understand that you, if I’m not mistaken, you were the one endorsed by the African Union, but then, we know that consensus building and political support from countries doesn’t always follow recommendations of international organizations, right?
So, two things, one is are – do you think we’ll be able to – do you think the African bloc, or the developing country bloc, which is roughly two thirds of the organization, would be able to agree on a candidate as one, or have, like, a single African candidate, or single developing country candidate? And the second thing is, how does having a Director-General coming from a developing country, from the continent, how does that affect the philosophy and the running of the organization? So, I guess these are two questions in one.
Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh
Well, thank you. On the first question, I think the African process – and by the way, the endorsement from the African Union was not just the endorsement from the organization, it was the endorsement from the members of the African Union, the Executive Ministerial Council of the African Union during the summit of February 2020. But I think the African process is now overtaken by events, because if we’re talking about African unity and supporting one candidate, the place for that is the African Union itself. And there is a process, there was a set of decisions taken for that and the deadline, even for submitting candidacies for that process, was the end of November 2019.
So, the other two African candidates are independent candidates to the WTO by their governments, but they’re not – they have not been endorsed by the Executive Council of the African Union. Be that as it may, I think, as I said, the process has been overtaken by events now, and I think considerations of geography and others, these are, sort of, desirable considerations. But I would say we are in a situation in the WTO now where we really need to focus on the essential attributes that are required in a WTO Director-General in times of crisis like this. There are desirable attributes, whether it’s geography, gender, and ministerial background, but we need to focus on the essentials. And the essentials, in my view, would relate to how do you select a Director-General who would be most capable of playing that role of the honest Broker? Which is a much more complicated role than an Executive, because WTO DG is not an Executive, it’s not like a Minister. A Minister is an Executive, that, by definition, executes a policy and advocates an agenda in the face of opposition. But the Director-General of the WTO has a much more complicated job of providing guidance to a process that he does not have the Executive authority to direct, and therefore, he or she would only rely on powers of persuasion, which would, as I said, depend on two things, the authoritative knowledge, as well as the confidence and trust that members will put into the person of the Director-General. So, that would be the way forward.
Now, your question about, how would a developing country Director-General influence the philosophy or the organization or the way the organization functions? I would say, it shouldn’t. Being from a developed or a developing country, a Director-General should be there for all members. And this is where I see that I would have a point of strength, because over the past 30 years, I have been standing at equal distance from all WTO members. I have been the trusted friend to go to, to solve problems. So, it should be the philosophy of the WTO, not the philosophy of a country or a region.
Mohamed El Dahshan
Fair enough. Fair enough, thank you for that. Alright, let me take – try to take a few of the questions that we have. I believe Mr Salhei’s question has been largely answered. I wonder if Mr James Tudor-White is on the line and would like to ask their question out loud, otherwise I’d be happy to ask it for them? Mr Tudor-White, are you online?
James Tudor-White
Good morning.
Mohamed El Dahshan
Hi, James.
James Tudor-White
My name is James. I’m from the University of Birmingham and I am a student there. My question is, international trade has led to an increase in the wealth of nations, but it’s also increased inequality between nations. As Director-General, would you take a more purist approach in respect to free trade, such as removing any hindrances or barriers to trade, or would you, instead, want to champion and encourage trade which has a societal and climate benefit? And, if yes, how would you do this, as Director-General?
Mohamed El Dahshan
Oh, thank you, James. So, if I understand correctly, this is more of a – are we talking old school barriers removal, or are we looking more into, shall we say, the externalities of trade, including societal and climate repercussions?
James Tudor-White
That’s right, definitely.
Mohamed El Dahshan
Thank you, James. Hamid, the floor is yours.
Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh
Thank you. Thank you so much for that question, because it really is, in my view, a forward-looking question. Because one of the reforms that would have to be kept in mind for this system to make the WTO fit for purpose for the 21st Century is to think about the new realities. And the new realities here would involve a set of subjects, which we would call trade ands, trade and environment, trade and gender, trade and inequality, and trade and – it’s like trade and data flows, trade – there are so many trade ands. And here we need to take a clear, sort of, conceptual view of the nature of trade today.
And I keep repeating this, “Trade is not just about merchandise trade, trade is about trade in services as well.” And trade in services with technology driven, innovative business models has actually transformed the way we produce, the way we trade and the way we consume. And we need to look at the policy and regulatory interface between trade, both in goods and services, and all the legitimate policy agendas, be it inequalities, be it social or financial inequalities, be it trade and the environment, be it trade and protection of privacy, protection of consumers, the – and the list goes on and on and on.
But one area of complex conversation that we need to really start digging deeper into, with the help of other organisations and academia, and involve civil society, is this interface between facilitating cross-border and cross-jurisdictional trade, in order to achieve, excuse me, in order to achieve the kind of welfare gains that trade is meant to provide, on the one hand, and reconcile that with regulatory sovereignty and achieving legitimate policy objectives, whether it’s with respect to distributional policies, or whether it’s respect – with respect to environmental policies or development policies, or the – all the legitimate national policy objectives that are served by governments.
That’s an area of critical conversation or conversations that we will need to have. This hasn’t been happening in the WTO for the past, at least, 20 years, since the launch of the Doha Round and that is a problem, in my view. This is the collapse of one of the legs of the tripod that I was talking about in the beginning, we have not been having these conversations at all. And that means that the knowledge base within the WTO needs to be uplifted to make it commensurate with the realities of the 21st Century, including the issues that you referred to.
Now, I’m sorry, I’m giving a, sort of, conceptual answer to your question, but we can unpack it and go into details for as long as you would want. I’m just conscious of the time, but there is a lot to be unpacked in that question. So back to you, Mohamed.
Mohamed El Dahshan
Thank you. So actually, I mean, there are quite a number of questions that are coming that are asking about climate change and about the environmental impact of trade and biodiversity. But, actually, it might be worthwhile, sort of, expanding a little bit on this. But to do this, I will call on Mr and Miss Andy Calitz to ask their question, if possible. If you could unmute yourself, we would love to hear a question.
Andy Calitz
Good morning from London. In the context…
Mohamed El Dahshan
Hi, Andy.
Andy Calitz
…of climate change and the geopolitics of energy security, and when one thinks about the differences of between, say, Russia, China, Europe and North America, how does energy trade feature in your agenda at the World Trade Organisation?
Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh
Well, thank you, that’s a very good question, and here, I would distinguish a bit between energy products, energy goods, oil, gas, all of the rest, and energy services.
Mohamed El Dahshan
Hamid forgive me for interrupting you for just a second. Just to add to that question, if we’re talking about energy, trade and products, also, please consider environmental impacts thereof, so that we’re actually touching a number of points. Thank you so much, I’m sorry.
Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh
And here there has to be a balance struck between liberalising trade in order to provide the efficiency and welfare gains that competition in international markets would lead to, and balance that with the environment protection agenda, as Mohamed just mentioned. And here, that balance would involve, also, what kind of legal obligations would members undertake in terms of opening markets, in terms of trade in energy products and energy services, and what kind of policy space would governments have in order to pursue environment protection policies?
And here, I would also stress that we cannot take an agenda like climate change or environment protection and expect that the entire agenda would be resolved in a trade negotiation, be it in the WTO or elsewhere, but we should look at what kind of contribution would trade negotiations be able to make. But we need to also reinforce international co-operation on mitigating climate change and environment protection and sustainable development in the broader context, not just in a trade context, but there has to be coherence between the two. And indeed, the WTO has started, actually, addressing, making serious contributions to climate and environmental problems. Environmental problems, for example, the negotiations on fisheries’ subsidies, I think this is the first time in the history of the multilateral trading system where a trade negotiation on fishery subsidies would have, as its main purpose, to make a contribution to an environmental problem. We need to expand that logic and we need to have more initiatives that would maximize the contribution of trade negotiations and negotiated commitments to the achievement of environmental goals. Now that’s an area of conversation that needs to take place.
But back to your question about trade and energy, it is quite important. Actually, it was part of the Doha Round negotiations on services, and it was a very, very active part of the negotiations, until the negotiations broke down, for reasons that relate more broadly to the negotiating function in the WTO. But, indeed, it received a lot of interest from a wide range of countries, both developed and developing. Back to you, Mohamed.
Mohamed El Dahshan
Right, great answer, thank you for that. I am going to bring in another question, which is a bit of a different question. I think it steps outside of our conversation to, sort of, think creatively about how trade can support different – or how trade can help resolve different kind of questions. So, I’m going to ask Mr Salek Emil if he is on to please unmute himself and ask this question, Mr Salek Emil?
Salek Emil
Yes. Thank you.
Mohamed El Dahshan
Thank you, thanks.
Salek Emil
My question is – yes, my question to the candidate is what his vision is on the role that trade can play in bridging gaps, such as the gap between downstream and upstream nations on the Nile Basin, which is all over the news, how trade can contribute towards, you know, overcoming historical asymmetries? Thank you.
Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh
Okay, well, I think trade can play a fundamental role, because trade is one area of international co-operation that can carry a lot of win-win outcomes. Countries have different structures of economies; they have different structures of markets and different competitive advantages, and there will always be trade-offs. But we need to, particularly when we’re looking at trade between developing countries south-south, like African countries, for example, we have to look at the problems that inhibit trade growth and trade promotion. It’s not just by signing an agreement or having a good negotiated outcome that you’re going to have increased trade. If you look at the African Continent, for example, one of the biggest problems is connectivity, and by connectivity, I mean both physical and digital connectivity.
To promote intra-African trade is going to be very difficult until we start dealing with those structural issues. You know, if you – if an order to export goods from East Africa to West Africa, it has to go through Europe, it’s very difficult for trade to grow in a situation like this. And in the world of digital trade today, how do we deal with the digital divide and what kind of trade contribution could we have in order to bridge the digital divide? Whether it’s about development of physical infrastructure or regulatory infrastructure, or whether it’s about, you know, raising awareness, or whether it’s about having the right kind of rules to protect online consumers, or – it’s a – there’s a big tool box of instruments that need to be used in order to materialise the benefits from trade.
Trade negotiations and concluding the right kind of trade agreements, the right kind of trade obligations on both sides, is a critical fact, of course. But what I’m saying here, I think it’s not enough, and there is a lot – and your reference to upstream and downstream countries is a very good one. The fact that there are upstream and downstream means that there are - there’s got to be complementarity. So, we have to look for that and how to promote this, but for that, unfortunately, trade is becoming more and more complicated.
We have to be optimistic, but optimism is not a plan. That’s why we need a plan. We need vision to unpack those complex issues and put them in a political framework, where we say, “Okay, this is going to be the agenda. Are we all happy with it?” Because we have to be happy with it and we have to be clear about the common purpose, why we’re here. Sorry, I keep coming back to this point about the sense of common purpose, but also, about mobilising the knowledge and experience in order to have the right answers. But before we have the right answers, we have to be asking the right questions and that’s part of what we need to do.
Mohamed El Dahshan
Fair enough. Alright, I think we have, like, two minutes left, so I guess as a way of concluding remarks, allow me to ask you, sort of, a brief last question. Away from the philosophical aspect, away from the vision aspect, when elected to lead the organization, what are the main points on your 100 days plan? What are your practical first few steps that you would, you know, step in running with? And I guess that will be our conclusion for this conversation.
Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh
Well, thank you, Mohamed. I would certainly hit the ground running, as they say, and – but I would have clearly in my sight MC12, the next ministerial, and what we need to achieve by the next ministerial. Now it is scheduled for June in Kazakhstan. I would say that there are two sets of issues that I would have as my priorities. The first is to have a clear vision for a reform agenda and a reform process. So, we would agree at MC12, what do we want to do with organization, what do we want to do with the system, and how we’re going to do it? It’s about the what and the how we’re going to do it. And how would need to be processed and the what would have to be more than just a list of items, it has to be an insightful agenda.
The second set of issues is negotiations, the ongoing negotiations. We have to conclude the negotiations on fishery subsidies. This is an SDG-related objective, and we have to be – to make our contribution, as WTO, to the international community on that. And then, we would have to reboot the negotiating function, as well. There are ongoing negotiations on e-commerce, investment facilitation, domestic regulation services, small and medium sized enterprises, trade and women empowerment. We need to register concrete progress on those, and that would be my first priority. We need to use the next ministerial to move the WTO into positive territory. Well, we have to do that with an enlightened approach. And one thought here that I would add at the end, as a concluding remark, Mohamed, and it’s a principle that I lived by in my personal life, with my family, with my friends, professionally, everywhere, and I believe it is also true between countries, successful relationships do not depend on how much we agree on, they depend a lot more on how we deal with our differences. And we have to be able to deal with our differences with mutual respect, with empathy, with knowledge, with transparency and trust. And if we have transparency and we have knowledge, we promote trust. Transparency is critical, you know, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Let’s have everything out in the light and move forward together with the common purpose that would help us deal with our differences in a mutual, respectful, empathetic way. So, with that, I thank you very much for having me.
Mohamed El Dahshan
Thank you so much, Mr Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh, we have really enjoyed having you. Sorry for the questions that we weren’t able to get to. This conversation will be available on our website, so please watch and re-watch it and stay tuned for other conversations within the WTO conversations that Chatham House is hosting. So, on this, thank you, once again, Mr Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh, best of luck for the upcoming elections. We will be looking – we will be observing with bated breath and we wish you all the best and thank you to all the audience for keeping with us throughout this conversation.
Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
Mohamed El Dahshan
Thank you, sir.
