Summary: 1. The Secretary-General of UNCTAD said that UNCTAD X had benefited from a rare combination of positive circumstances, both internal and external to the organization. First of all, it had been a matter of the right timing: in the aftermath of the WTO Ministerial Conference at Seattle, Governments had been determined not to repeat that failure. Secondly, the Conference had been held at the right place, as the host country, Thailand, under the leadership of Deputy Prime Minister Supachai Panitchpakdi, had made an outstanding commitment to its success, approaching it with a sense of ownership that extended beyond the Government to the press, civil society and the population as a whole. 2. Thirdly, there was the contribution made by the preparatory process, led by the preparatory committee of the G-77 and China; the role of the regional meetings in building a conciliatory atmosphere; and the sizeable contribution made by the President of the Board. And fourthly, there were the secretariat's own innovations and input, in considering form and substance to be inseparable; in using the meeting room screen for drafting and negotiating texts; and in bringing together the heads of international organizations to address economic and social issues related to UNCTAD's mandate and their possible contribution to UNCTAD's work. 3. It was now, however, time to live up to the expectations that had been created at Bangkok and to keep up the momentum; concretely, the main challenge ahead would be to implement the Plan of Action (TD/386) and, on a regular basis, to maintain or improve on the factors that had contributed to the Conference's success. In so doing the organization should be guided by the innovative spirit of Bangkok and by the experience of Midrand. UNCTAD would be focusing even more on the problems of the least developed countries (LDCs), beginning with the Third United Nations Conference on the LDCs (LDC-III), to be held in Brussels in May 2001. The spirit of Bangkok meant encouraging convergent views in a mutually reinforcing manner; it required a process of constant consultation, guided by determination and caution, in order to improve synergies with the WTO, ITC, UNITAR, WIPO, ILO, UNIDO, FAO and other organizations in the UN system; and it meant making adjustments in the distribution of resources. Such adjustments would be needed in particular for the LDCs and for training and capacityBbuilding in developing countries, which were among UNCTAD's priorities. 4. The resulting questions were threefold: how to coordinate those activities and make them fully integrated with one another; how to use existing resources to manage the process; and how to translate paragraph 166 of the Plan of Action, on capacity-building, into action. The first step would be to name a focal point within UNCTAD to unify the coordination of the task, in consultation with member States; in addition, an advisory body would be established by the Board, and UNCTAD would cooperate closely with the newly created International Institute for Trade and Development, to be based in Bangkok
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International Institute for Trade and Developement : UNCTAD Collection
