World Perspectives

Trade versus Aid; Precision without Precise Tools

Trade versus Aid Former New Zealand Trade Ambassador Mike Moore made note that through most of the multilateral trade negotiations, developing countries had never been asked to offer any concessions. Instead, rich countries led the negotiations, made their own concessions and then gave some breadcrumbs to the poor countries. As a result, the developing countries still see this as the primary function of the WTO. Unable to reach a consensus on most issues ahead of the MC-12 ministerial, DG Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has a draft text that mostly says that members will continue best endeavors to reach an agreement.  The failure to include a permanent concession to public stockholding has upset developing countries. One coordinator for a bloc o...

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Section 301 Measures Will Fail to Make America Great Again

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Tariff Waste; Changing the EU; Cost of Data; Fake Food Safety

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From WPI Consulting

Illuminating the value of technical research

On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.

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