One of the unsung virtues of the WTO Chairs Program has been its catalytic role in prompting South-South discussions of trade and cross-country learning. Two small examples illuminate that point. The WTO Chair in South Africa, Prof. Wilma Viviers, had created a wonderful tool for helping governments direct their scarce resources promoting export. The tool, called the Decision Support Model, used detailed WTO product level data configured as a decision tree to identify potential, high value added exports. While working on Rwanda, I was delighted to enlist the South African team’s support to provide analysis to Rwandan officials, and their 172 page report proved to be of enormous value. A second example was the request of the Chile WTO Chair, Prof. Dorotea Lopez Giral, to discuss the effects of Covid-19 on African trade to a University of Chile audience. Connecting up three continents, the Kenyan WTO Chair, Prof. Tabitha Kirti in Nairobi, and I from Washington, conducted a wonderful discussion with a Chilean audience. These types of connections would simply have not happened had it not been for the WTO Chairs program.
Richard Newfarmer
Person
Testimonial summary
The WTO Chairs Program has been instrumental in promoting South-South discussions of trade and cross-country learning. Case studies where it has been successful is in South Africa and Rwanda.