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About ILEAP
Context
Globalization and regional integration are rapidly transforming the social and economic landscape the world over. While these present immense opportunities for economic development, the benefits are not equally distributed. It is widely recognized that unless significant adjustments are made to current globalization trends, developing countries may not be in a position to take advantage of potential benefits and many will experience net losses. Key prerequisites for these countries to benefit from globalization are missing in the current global arrangements. For example, these countries have limited access to multi-disciplinary, impartial, expert development advice relative to that available to industrial countries. In addition to this human resource deficiency, developing countries do not have the institutional infrastructure necessary to derive benefits from globalization. This significant asymmetry in access to professional advice cannot help but disadvantage these countries.
Mission
ILEAP is incorporated as a non-profit organization in Canada. Our vision is to promote pro-development outcomes in international negotiations. Our mission, or contribution to this vision, is to increase the effective participation of developing countries in trade negotiations. When it comes to the ability of developing countries in obtaining pro-development outcomes in international negotiations, their main weakness is the lack of expertise to formulate well-informed negotiation positions and to provide their negotiators with timely advice. ILEAP aims to help reduce the deficit in professional advice within developing countries in international negotiations by providing a non-governmental, multidisciplinary, capacity-building and advisory support service. To this end, ILEAP has identified 8 main objectives that address the capacity problem in developing countries:
- Provide analytical support to current negotiations in the form of practical research papers
- Assist in the formulation of negotiation positions
- Provide timely advice primarily through a network of Southern partners
- Facilitate access to information and analytical tools for researchers, negotiators and policymakers (such as databases and literature)
- Foster the development of the next generation of trade/development experts
- Build networks of trade experts for general support and issue-specific support
- Facilitate the interface between capital-based and Geneva-based trade missions and within government ministries
- Train existing civil servants involved in trade-related work
Message from the Executive Director
The global economy is at a critical juncture with increased international trade contributing to unprecedented economic growth and development. Current globalization trends and new governance arrangements promise unlimited opportunities for improving the world's trade and economic systems. This is good news for industrialized countries that are well positioned to deal with the growing complexity of trade policy issues and their impact on domestic policy. The prognosis may not be as promising, however, for the nearly three billion people (half of the world's population) who live in developing countries.
Faced with basic issues of population survival, extreme poverty and inadequate education, developing countries lack the resources and access to professional advice to be able to compete and negotiate successfully in complex international economic and trade negotiations. Often the poorest and smallest countries, notably in Africa and the Caribbean, enter into binding and onerous international trade agreements with only modest or, in some cases, no professional advice. Even in those cases where these countries are able to access professional services in relation to international issues, such advice is often rendered in a narrow way, without taking into account the impact of the agreements on the alleviation of poverty or the enhancement of societal welfare for these countries.
In addition to the lack of adequate professional services, developing countries lack the institutional infrastructure necessary to benefit from current globalization trends. The World Trade Organization (WTO) provides a poignant example of this very real problem. With regular and numerous delegate meetings, the WTO requires all member countries to maintain a large, skilled, and versatile delegation in Geneva to take part in the daily meetings and consultations. The WTO also requires all member countries to have staff in their home capitals that are able to provide direct operational support and guidance to the Geneva delegation. Quite simply, developing countries currently lack the resources that are required to function at this level.
Without their interests taken into account, and without the infrastructure in place to function on a level playing field, the new rules and the implementation of these rules cannot hope to address even the most basic of needs of developing countries.
In order for developing countries to integrate effectively and successfully into the global economy and benefit from new governance arrangements, they must secure more effective representation in trade negotiations.
International Lawyers and Economists Against Poverty (ILEAP) has been formed to fill this need. It is a multidisciplinary network of experts willing to address in a holistic manner the needs of developing countries in international trade negotiations. By offering a supply of skilled and highly motivated professionals, ILEAP hopes to fill a major gap in the international economic system. It seeks to draw upon the skills of professionals throughout the world who are motivated by the desire to contribute, in innovative and collaborative ways, to the struggle against global poverty and inequity. It seeks not just to offer assistance in greater volume, but more importantly, to offer it in new, more demand-responsive and more effective ways.
Dominique Njinkeu, Executive Director
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