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SDG 17 identifies strengthening the multilateral trading system as a key aspect of the means of implementation and partnerships for sustainable development. At the WTO 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) in June 2022, issues to be discussed directly concern many of the identified targets of the 2030 Agenda, including medicines and vaccines, food security, and fisheries subsidies. New issues that concern service de-regulation and investment liberalisation are being tabled in plurilateral initiatives, while the Doha Development Round remains blocked.
The years since the pandemic have exposed how trade rules and the economic crisis bear on the rights of women workers, peasants and Indigenous People in the global South. At the WTO’s MC12, a Joint Ministerial Declaration for Gender Equality and Women’s Economic Empowerment will further institutionalise the “integrat[ion of] a gender perspective” alongside an affirmation of trade liberalisation. But civil society organisations have long-running concerns on the coherence of trade liberalisation, and its vulnerabilities to shocks, with the sustainable development imperatives of an equitable trading system, of developing local industries and agriculture, and strengthening public services.
A people-centred trading system is essential in systemic shifts to build a better, sustainable world. Given the interdependencies of SDG 17 on other SDGs, how then do we ensure that a multilateral trading system upholds people’s rights and contributes to women’s full and effective participation in economic life, and control over resources (SDG 5)? How can the trade system be truly sustainable, with the regulatory and policy space for recovery in a post-pandemic world?
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