EVENTS

Coming up: 10 - 16 April

14 April, New York, New York, USA. SPECIAL HIGH LEVEL MEETING OF THE UN ECOSOC WITH THE WORLD BANK, IMF, WTO AND UNCTAD. The overall theme of the meeting will be "Coherence, coordination and cooperation in the context of the implementation of the Monterrey Consensus, including new challenges and emerging issues". The meeting will substantively cover the following sub-themes:New initiatives on financing for development; Supporting development efforts and enhancing the role of middle-income countries, including in the area of trade; Supporting development efforts of the least developed countries, including through trade capacity-building; Building and sustaining solid financial markets: challenges for international cooperation; Financing of climate change mitigation and adaptation. For more information please refer to the conference website at http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/ecosoc/springmeetings/2008/index.htm.

15-16 April, Cancun, Mexico. WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM ON LATIN AMERICA. Co-hosted by the Government of Mexico under the patronage of President Felipe Calderón, this top-level gathering will include leaders from business, government, international organizations as well as civil society representatives and regional experts. Latin America just concluded a long period of sustained 5%+ economic growth, booming capital markets and unusually solid fundamentals. The short-term impact of a US recession, and the long-term impact of a shift in the global power equation, however, are not clear and there are many important reforms that are not taking place or taking place too slowly.The meeting in Mexico will focus on discovering and highlighting the business opportunities brought about by the successful execution of a priority reform agenda. For more information please refer to the conference website at http://www.weforum.org/en/events/WorldEconomicForumonLatinAmerica2008/index.htm

16-18 April, Dakar, Senegal. THE INTERNATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY CONFERENCE IN AFRICA. As Africa continues to register consistent and positive economic growth rates, there are serious concerns that energy supply and access challenges are already encumbering the continent's overall growth prospects. It should, however, be noted that Africa has vast renewable and non-renewable energy resources that largely go unexploited. Making use of lessons learnt and experience gained with renewable energy projects in Africa and elsewhere, the conference will examine how bottlenecks to renewable energy market related to policies, technologies, financing and capacity can be addressed so as to increase access to energy in Africa. It will bring together high-level decision makers to provide visible leadership and commitment to a common strategy for market-based scaling up of renewable energies that is informed by lessons learnt from concrete case studies and the energy situation that obtains in Africa.The conference is jointly organized by the African Union, the Government of Senegal, the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development and UNIDO. The focus of the meeting is "Making renewable energy markets work for Africa Policies, Industries and Finance for Scaling-Up." For more information, please visit the conference website at http://www.unido.org/en/doc/76539.

WTO Events

An updated list of forthcoming WTO meetings is posted at: http://www.wto.org/meets_public/meets_e.pdf. Please bear in mind that dates and times of WTO meetings are often changed, and that the WTO does not always announce the important informal meetings of the different bodies. Unless otherwise indicated, all WTO meetings are held at the WTO, Centre William Rappard, rue de Lausanne 154, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland, and are open to WTO Members and accredited observers only.

10 April: PANEL DS294 (ZEROING) PUBLIC VIEWING

14 April: NEGOTIATING GROUP ON MARKET ACCESS

Other Upcoming Events

12 May, Bogor, Indonesia: FOOD, FUEL AND FORESTS: A SEMINAR ON CLIMATE CHANGE, AGRICULTURE AND TRADE. Organized by the International Food & Agricultural Trade Policy Council (IPC). Recognizing that economic, environmental, and social sustainability are becoming increasingly difficult objectives to balance in the agricultural and forestry sectors, IPC will convene key Indonesian agriculture and trade government officials, academics, and private sector representatives with other international experts to discuss solutions to these conflicts. The dialogue will center around the themes of climate change, biofuels, agriculture, and trade. For further information, contact Christine St. Pierre, tel: +1 202 328 5117; email: stpierre@agritrade.org; internet: www.agritrade.org.