Hence, the principles governing special and differential treatment would be:

· Eligibility should consider the human development indicators and rankings of countries.

· Provisions should be unconditional, binding and non-negotiable.

* Provisions on government assistance for economic development should be reactivated, based on human development criteria; giving developing countries more flexibility to suspend WTO obligations where necessary for human development challenges. This would be subject to “internal and external validation”.

· Graduation from eligibility for SDT would be based on internationally agreed indicators of human and technological capabilities and the achievement of MDGs.

· The Generalised system of Preferences and other preferential schemes should be made part of the WTO mandate.

How might such an approach work for the countries of the Greater Caribbean region? Looking at the human development picture, one notes the wide diversity of achievement (see table). Six countries have attained high human development category, 17 are in the medium category and one has low human development.

But several of those with high human development are small, service-oriented economies that are particularly vulnerable to the impact of trade liberalisation. The smallest economies in the region have heavy reliance on import duties for fiscal revenues, which finance basic social services for human development in these countries. Tariff liberalisation obligations for these economies should take into account the reliance of human development levels on trade taxes.

The majority of regional countries have shown indifferent performance in improving economic and human development levels in the past 25 years; a period of widespread trade liberalisation.

For 1975-2000, only six countries managed to sustain a rate of growth of real per capita income of more than two per cent per annum. Seven countries had a positive rate of less than one per cent and five registered negative growth. In the 1990s, growth appears to have picked up, but only marginally.

Manufacturing is significant in many of the larger countries in the region, but meeting the challenges of international competitiveness often requires state supports of a kind used widely by the developed countries and the Asian countries at earlier stages of industrial development, but are now proscribed by the WTO. SDT would restore the flexibility to deploy such policies under agreed circumstances.

In many countries agriculture is still a major source of employment and income. High tariffs and subsidies in the developed countries coupled with import liberalisation in the poorer countries and elimination of traditional export preferences could spell disaster for the latter. Special and differential treatment would recognise the social and economic role of agriculture in the light of the Millennium Development Goals of poverty reduction.

ACS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT FIGURES 2000
SOURCE: HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2002, UNDP

GLOBAL HDI RANK COUNTRY GDP PER CAPITA ANNUAL GROWTH RATE (%) HDI TREND 1980-2000

1975-2000 1980 2000

High human development

31 BARBADOS 1.3 0.871

41 THE BAHAMAS 1.5 0.805 0.826

43 COSTA RICA 1.1 0.769 0.820

44 SAINT KITTS AND NEVIS 5.7 .. 0.814

50 TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO 0.5 0.755 0.805

52 ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA 4.6 .. 0.800

Medium human development

54 MEXICO 0.9 0.734 0.796

55 CUBA .. .. 0.795

57 PANAMA 0.8 0.731 0.787

58 BELIZE 2.9 0.710 0.784

61 DOMINICA .. .. 0.779

66 SAINT LUCIA 4.4 .. 0.772

68 COLOMBIA 1.6 0.690 0.772

69 VENEZUELA -0.9 0.731 0.770

74 SURINAME -0.1 .. 0.756

83 GRENADA 3.9 .. 0.747

86 JAMAICA 0.5 0.69 0.742

91 ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES 3.9 .. 0.733

94 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 1.7 0.646 0.727

103 GUYANA 0.3 0.679 0.708

104 EL SALVADOR -0.1 0.586 0.706

116 HONDURAS 0.1 0.566 0.638

118 NICARAGUA -3.5 0.576 0.635

120 GUATEMALA .. 0.543 0.631

Low human development