INTERESTS AND OPTIONS OF DEVELOPING AND LEAST-DEVELOPED COUNTRIES IN A NEW ROUND OF MULTILATERAL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS

Negotiating interests and options have to be identified against the background of the possible agenda of a new round. Several important elements of this agenda are codified in what is referred to as the "built-in agenda", including: (i) an assessment of the implementation of Uruguay Round Agreements (RAS); (ii) specific reviews of particular agreements that were mandated by the Uruguay Round; and, as the core of a new round, (iii) new negotiations on agriculture, GATS, and Trips. Possible further components of the agenda could be negotiations on trade and investment, competition policy, trade facilitation, transparency in government procurement, environmental and labour standards, and further liberalization of industrial tariffs, and textiles and clothing. Many developing and least-developed countries are reluctant to support such a comprehensive agenda, because they are still pre-occupied with difficult administrative, institutional and financial problems arising from the implementation of various RAS. They also have difficulties in articulating the strategies that could underpin the identification of their negotiating interests and options. Their preparation for a new round is likely to be mostly inadequate owing to a lack of human knowledge and institutional capacity that an effective participation in the WTO process requires. They will thus have to take decisions on complex issues that they may not have adequately analyzed and understood. But a new trade round will also present an important opportunity for developing countries to press for enhanced market access and to undo some of the damages imposed by the RAS dealing with rules and standards. They have taken on many mandatory obligations in exchange for non-binding and "best endeavour" concessions from the developed countries. Rebalancing this situation should be a major concern for both the developing and the least-developed countries. The new round should also offer the low-income countries an opportunity to be more pro-active in terms of defining its agenda, for instance in proposing multilaterally negotiated decisions regarding the criteria for categorizing WTO member countries, as well as the form and context of "special and differential treatment" for the developing and least-developed countries. This paper discusses the trade-strategy options of low-income countries, the areas of greatest interest to developing countries, as well as those that are to pose the greatest difficulties, the question of how developing countries can enhance the effectiveness of their participation in the new Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations, and also makes some suggestions on how to change WTO governance and management structures in order to ensure that the concerns of flow-income members are given greater prominence in the organization´s activities.

The effects of trade and exchange rate policies on agriculture in Nigeria.:

Agricultural policy Nigeria., Nigeria Commercial policy., Foreign exchange administration Nigeria., Nigeria Economic policy.,

Immunological insights into COVID-19 in Southern Nigeria

Introduction: One of the unexpected outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic was the relatively low levels of morbidity and mortality in Africa compared to the rest of the world. Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, accounted for less than 0.01% of the global COVID-19 fatalities. The factors responsible for Nigeria's relatively low loss of life due to COVID-19 are unknown. Also, the correlates of protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and the impact of pre-existing immunity on the outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa are yet to be elucidated. Here, we evaluated the natural and vaccine-induced immune responses from vaccinated, non-vaccinated and convalescent individuals in Southern Nigeria throughout the three waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. We also examined the pre-existing immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 from samples collected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: We used spike RBD and N- IgG antibody ELISA to measure binding antibody responses, SARS-CoV-2 pseudotype assay protocol expressing the spike protein of different variants (D614G, Delta, Beta, Omicron BA1) to measure neutralizing antibody responses and nucleoprotein (N) and spike (S1, S2) direct ex vivo interferon gamma (IFNγ) T cell ELISpot to measure T cell responses. Result: Our study demonstrated a similar magnitude of both binding (N-IgG (74% and 62%), S-RBD IgG (70% and 53%) and neutralizing (D614G (49% and 29%), Delta (56% and 47%), Beta (48% and 24%), Omicron BA1 (41% and 21%)) antibody responses from symptomatic and asymptomatic survivors in Nigeria. A similar magnitude was also seen among vaccinated participants. Interestingly, we revealed the presence of preexisting binding antibodies (N-IgG (60%) and S-RBD IgG (44%)) but no neutralizing antibodies from samples collected prior to the pandemic. Discussion: These findings revealed that both vaccinated, non-vaccinated and convalescent individuals in Southern Nigeria make similar magnitude of both binding and cross-reactive neutralizing antibody responses. It supported the presence of preexisting binding antibody responses among some Nigerians prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Lastly, hybrid immunity and heterologous vaccine boosting induced the strongest binding and broadly neutralizing antibody responses compared to vaccine or infection-acquired immunity alone

Emergence and spread of two SARS-CoV-2 variants of interest in Nigeria.

Identifying the dissemination patterns and impacts of a virus of economic or health importance during a pandemic is crucial, as it informs the public on policies for containment in order to reduce the spread of the virus. In this study, we integrated genomic and travel data to investigate the emergence and spread of the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.318 and B.1.525 (Eta) variants of interest in Nigeria and the wider Africa region. By integrating travel data and phylogeographic reconstructions, we find that these two variants that arose during the second wave in Nigeria emerged from within Africa, with the B.1.525 from Nigeria, and then spread to other parts of the world. Data from this study show how regional connectivity of Nigeria drove the spread of these variants of interest to surrounding countries and those connected by air-traffic. Our findings demonstrate the power of genomic analysis when combined with mobility and epidemiological data to identify the drivers of transmission, as bidirectional transmission within and between African nations are grossly underestimated as seen in our import risk index estimates

Food Policy and the Choice of Trade Regime

A consensus is emerging, especially among academics, policy analysts, and the more enlightened politicians on the need for urgent and sustained action to provide both short-term and long-term solutions to Africa's food producers. However, it is still debatable whether we fully understand the scope of the food problem and the factors responsible for it. It is important to make a clear distinction between long-term and shortterm aspects of food policy and food security relationships. It is obvious that the long term is not necessarily a series of short terms and that long-term considerations are influenced by short-term responses to food policy problems. Thus, the long-term orientation of the following discussion is not to be taken as implying that the short-term elements of food policy issues (for example, food supply instability and insecurity) are not closely related to the choice of trade regime (that is, to tariff, quota, and exchange rate policies). Rather, it is an attempt to obtain the sharpest possible focus by concentrating on a limited set of issues.PRIFPRI

The Effects of Trade and Exchange Rate Policies on Agriculture in Nigeria

The past decade has been one of major turbulence in the global economy, including rapid inflation, oil price shocks, extraordinary rise and decline in food prices, and low real interest rates encouraging borrowers that had later proven unsustainable. The process of managing that turbulence, along with industry-oriented development strategies, has led many developing countries to grossly overvalue their exchange rates. The extent to which overvaluation discriminates against exports and agriculture in general and agricultural exports in particular had received increasing emphasis in recent years. Thus, the International Food Trade and Food Security Program at IFPRI has undertaken a series of country studies on the foreign trade and exchange rate regimes as they relate to the structure of incentives for agriculture in developing countries…This study was partially funded by the Ford Foundation’s office in Lagos, Nigeria, and by the International Development Research Centre of Canada. IFPRI is particularly grateful to these two organizations for their encouragement and support of this work on Sub-Saharan Africa