67th UNCTAD Trade and Development Board meeting
30 September 2020
I am pleased to bid welcome to so many of you today in person, together with us physically for this agenda item meant to discuss our ongoing preparations for UNCTAD15. Like so much of our work, the preparations for the Barbados Conference have taken on novel dimensions compared to previous conferences, given the unique challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
I am glad to see these preparations begin to take some form of normality, as we are finally able to meet together physically at this 3rd TDB Segment, while continuing to observe the necessary sanitary protocols.
This brave new post-COVID-19 world we are learning to live with is already taking a severe toll on development prospects, as we continue to discuss here at the TDB. My wish is that we do not let it take a toll on the preparations for our conference and the important business we must address there.
Allow me to thank the Government of Barbados for their continuing patience and support and for working with my team to finalize formalities for the host country agreement, which allowed myself and Her Excellency Prime Minister Mottley to sign off on it last month.
As I told that virtual meeting, the COVID-19 crisis has hit the most vulnerable countries and people hardest, at a time when they already were not doing well. The pandemic and its fallout have exposed existential challenges to the very tenets of globalization and will have a lasting impact on future efforts by developing countries to gainfully benefit from the global economy.
This is why UNCTAD15 is a first opportunity for the development community to align Agenda 2030 with the global “new normal.” After a decade of stagnant trade and investment, COVID-19 is the inflection point catalyzing a transformation of international production towards more re-shoring, regionalization, and resilience beyond the pandemic.
The “next normal” will bring shorter supply chains, greater digitalization and a lighter global production footprint. It will mean a shift from “just in time” logistics to “just in case” resilience, and increased focus on the sustainability of private finance, on the blue economy, on biodiversity as a source of comparative advantage, and on changes in consumer tastes towards the local and the greener. And the de-globalizing trend underpinning this shift also raises the stakes for South-South cooperation, including regional integration ambitions, like AfCFTA. It also raises the stakes for international private-public cooperation, for example, on issues such as combatting illicit financial flows and illicit trade.
UNCTAD15 must therefore shape the ambitions for a better recovery. We must transform global approaches to trade and development, if we are to chart a sustainable course to a better recovery. But rather than “building back better” as some have called for, we need to re-build entirely from the ground up, because for too many, going back to business as usual is anathema to sustaining prosperity.
As we meet together today, I am confident that the secretariat and the entire membership are up to this ambitious task. I am pleased to see the proactive leadership of the TDB president, H.E. Ambassador Villegas, and I am encouraged by the goodwill and constructive attitude of all delegations. It is my sincere hope that this novel arrangement of informal brainstorming, and the planned webinar series can help us adapt our preparatory process to the new realities, yet still build the necessary momentum we need to the monumental occasion of the 15th UNCTAD ministerial conference in Bridgetown that I know we will have.
As our preparatory road becomes more clear, I look forward to the opportunity to share with you my report to the Conference. I know that together we can ensure that UNCTAD15 rises to the occasion which the extraordinary times in which we are living requires. My thanks to you all for your continued goodwill and I wish you all the best in your deliberations.
