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Description

Recent years have witnessed a rapid expansion in the global area of biotech crops, with production largely concentrated in a few countries and crops. This substantial growth has been accompanied by entrenched opinions on biotechnology's risks and benefits that have divided the supporters and opponents of the technology. International trade is increasingly bringing these differences into contact at a multilateral level, adding important economic interests to an already charged debate. While some countries want to see trade in biotech products flow as freely as possible, others are virtually closing off their markets by putting in place stringent import regulations. These differences are also played out in related multilateral processes, notably the negotiations on documentation requirements for biotech commodities trade under the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the ongoing dispute between the US/Argentina/Canada and the EU at the World Trade Organization.

Many developing countries are still in the process of formulating their public policy objectives related to biotechnology and translating them into national and regional approaches and multilateral negotiating positions. However, the need to respond and adapt to the international developments – including a myriad of trade interests, obligations and pressures – threatens to dominate national agendas. This raises the urgent need for understanding and asserting the space for domestic policy-making in biotechnology supportive of the countries' self-defined sustainable development objectives. As part of this effort, the ICTSD-ATPS-AU-NEPAD dialogue endeavoured to support the formulation of coherent, informed and inclusive policies on trade, biotechnology and sustainable development at the national, regional and multilateral levels.

To this end, the dialogue aimed to: