THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING GROUP ON THE DOHA AGENDA (IWOGDA) PROGRAMME  

1.    At the first meeting of the Working Group on Trade and Competition Policy this year, there seem to be a general 
       consensus that technical assistance and capacity-building are not “one-size fit all”  and that commitments to provide 
       assistance should be long.   However, details with regard to how the assistance will be tailored to the specific needs of the 
       recipient, the mode of delivery, and the role the WTO in relation to other regional and international organizations that have 
       been active in providing such assistance, remain unclear.

2.   From the experience of Thailand that has had a full-fledged competition law and authority since 1999, technical assistance provided through bi-lateral and regional arrangements, as well as through international organization such as the World Bank, have been most useful in obtaining basic concepts and some specialized knowledge about competition law and policy.  However, to ensure greater effectiveness, future technical assistance and capacity building programs should

(a)  involve long term commitments – i.e. two to five years in order for foreign experts to be sufficiently involved in the “implementation” process, where major hurdles are likely to emerge.  One-shot programs that last several days are normally ineffective since they present major concepts or ideas that are abstract or are not easily practiced in a different legal, economic and cultural environment with different constraints;

(b)  be specifically tailored to local needs and local environment in local language.  It is best that foreign donors seek partnership with qualified local institutions in designing and organizing the programs.  All lectures should be assisted by local experts that can not only translate the key points made, but also make references to the local environment.  All documents used in the training should be translated into local language for future references. 

(c)    be sufficiently flexible to allow the targeted recipient to design own programs.  A “competition fund”[1] may be established to finance locally initiated projects that help advocate competition (research on competition issues, design and set up of a local competition policy and law web site, publication and dissemination of competition-related literature, etc.);

(d)   focus more on building institutional knowledge, which involves the transfer of know-how in training -- i.e. “training the trainers” -- and in building an efficient documentation system so that developing countries may develop their own capacity-building capability and thus, need not rely on foreign funds indefinitely.

(e)  include transfers of practical know-how, such as investigative techniques and data and information collection and analysis techniques.

3.     As for capacity-building, according to the author’s opinion, the area that is in most urgent need of assistance for countries with a competition authority is the design of transparent and fair procedures, which constitute key elements of the core principles that will be the topic of discussion in the third meeting of the Working Group on Trade and Competition Policy in September this year.  Transparent procedures will ensure that the law is properly, consistently and impartially enforced, which should benefit all parties involved and will lay the necessary foundation for closer co-operation in the future.  Rules and guidelines governing competition authority’s rule-making and adjudicating process such as notification, public opinion soliciting, information gathering and disclosure as well as ethical issues need to be established in order to ensure that competition law is effectively and indiscriminantly enforced.

4.   To ensure consistency in the competition regime across different sectors of the economy, we believe that technical assistance and capacity building programs should extend also to sector-specific regulatory bodies.  These include, for example, the Central Bank, the Stock Exchange Commission, and the sector-specific regulatory bodies.  At the policy level, the national economic planning agency should also be made aware of the significance of competition law and policy. 

5.   While assistance in technical and practical skills related to the enforcement of the competition and policy is undeniably essential, we also believe that assistance in building “public awareness” on this relatively complex subject is equivalently important.  That is, future programs should target at a wider and diversified constituency.

6.   As large development gaps are likely to exist between the capital city and the rural areas in most developing countries, capacity building and public awareness programs need to be decentralized in terms of geography.  Assistance activities are normally targeted at the competition authority and other concerned public and private representatives in the capital city, where most people are already relatively informed and where competition flourishes due to the sheer size of the market.  Little efforts have been placed in raising public awareness among provincial business and consumers communities that are more prone to anti-competitive abuses.  

7.   Finally and most importantly, in an environment where there is a lack of political will and commitment in promoting competition policy, pressures must come from outside the government.  That is, assistance programs and activities should aim at building competition constituency at the grass root level.  It is necessary to have training and capacity building programs that target at civil organizations, in particular consumer organizations as well as the media.  It is imperative that these organizations recognize that competition policy is about consumer protection and that it is in the country’s interest to enforce the law.  Financial assistance should be made directly to these organizations when possible or through a reputable and qualified local non-government, not-for-profit or academic institutions.  One should not forget that ultimately, it is the people -- not a few public officials -- that will dictate the fate of competition policy in the WTO.   Indeed, building such a wide constituency may require significantly greater resources, time and effort, but it can assure a smoother passage towards establishing a multilateral cooperation in competition policy.  

8.   The UNDP has been most active in delivering assistance in competition policy and is willing to co-ordinate bi-lateral and regional efforts in this area.  Thus, we propose that the UNDP be the organization responsible for monitoring progress on technical assistance and capacity-building commitments made in the WTO.  That is, it would be responsible for  “keeping inventory” of various developing countries’ assistance and capacity building needs and, at the same time, assist in mobilizing required resources from donor countries  to match the specific demands.  It is therefore necessary that each developing country draft its own assistance and capacity-building needs that best suit the local environment.  

9.   The author believes that commitments in the provision of technical assistance and capacity building should be voluntary.  However, assessment should be made periodically with regard to the progress by the UNDP as mentioned above.  Developing countries should maintain the freedom in deciding whether or not to enter into negotiation in competition policy in the next round.  As with many issues subject to negotiation in the WTO, competition policy is a relatively complex issue.  Without sufficient comprehension of the law and policy and their implications to the domestic economy and international trade, developing countries would be confined to playing at most a defensive role in negotiations. 

Copyright 2005 Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS), All rights reserved. D-217, Bhaskar Marg, Bani Park, Jaipur 302 016, India Phone: +91(0)141-228 2821-3, Fax: 91.141.2282485   Hosted by: www.fullestop.com

Top