The World Trade Organization and Subsidies: Bridging the North-South Divide
The Global Subsidies Initiative is the next stage of the Van Lennep Program, named after Emile van Lennep, the distinguished Dutch economist and Minister, and former Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. A collaborative effort of IISD and the Earth Council, the Van Lennep Program focused on four sectors in its initial phase: energy, road transport, water and agriculture. Following a detailed review of subsidies applied in these sectors, its report, Subsidizing Unsustainable Development: Undermining the Earth with Public Funds, offered a dramatic demonstration of how subsidies serve as disincentives to sustainable development.
The Bridging the North-South Divide phase of the Van Lennep Program was aimed at closing the divide between developed and developing countries on the topic of subsidies, especially within the context the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Doha Development Round. The project looked to bridge the North-South divide by building Southern capacity to deal effectively with subsidies, in particular perverse subsidies that ultimately impact the social and environmental aspects of sustainable development. At the same time, the project fostered the institutional and professional capacity in developing countries to produce position papers supported by rigorous research to support their positions and participate effectively in the Development Round.
The Global Subsidies Initiative moves forward with the same purpose, focusing on three pillars:
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to establish a process to resolve subsidy-related differences between developed and developing countries in a constructive, transparent and equitable manner;
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to defuse the present antagonistic and suspicious attitudes towards the WTO on the issue of subsidies; and
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to build research capacity in the participating developing countries to identify the priority trade-related subsidy issues affecting them, and to develop policy approaches to address these priorities.
The Global Subsidies Initiative works in partnership with the Earth Council (EC) ; the Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto; TERI-The Energy and Resources Institute India; SATRN - The Southern Africa Trade Research Network; and CEPEA - Centre for Advanced Studies on Applied of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
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