WTO Deputy Director-General Dave Shark, in launching the WTO Chairs Programme at the North-West University (NWU) of Potchefstroom, South Africa on 17 September 2014, said that “academic institutions have helped the WTO raise awareness on trade issues and contributed to strengthening the knowledge base for effective decision-making”. The WTO will also be launching its Chairs Programme during the year in universities in Benin, Brazil, Indonesia, Oman, Tunisia and Turkey.
The WTO Chairs Programme is one of the WTO's flagship products in terms of trade capacity building, reaching out to the academic community and making links to the policy world.
It is part of the technical assistance and training programme that the WTO delivers with a view to enhancing the quality and level of participation of developing countries in the multilateral trading system and their ability to benefit from it. “This will help disseminating and strengthening analytical capacities for formulating sound trade and economic policies based on empirical evidence. Academic institutions have helped the WTO raise awareness on trade issues and contributed to strengthening the knowledge base for effective decision-making,” said Shark.
The Chair at the NWU is one of only seven WTO chairs awarded in 2014, through a tough and highly competitive selection process, involving some 80 academic institutions. The WTO Secretariat was assisted in the selection by an external Advisory Body, comprising 20 academics, who act as advisors to the Chairs Programme. The NWU thus joins an already existing network of WTO chairs, established in Phase I which was first launched in 2010. It now includes a total of 21 chairs around the globe, including eight chairs on the African continent - in Namibia, Mauritius Kenya, Benin, Senegal, Morocco and Tunisia.
The WTO Chairs Programme also provides some financial support to beneficiary institutions for a period of four years. It facilitates continuous interaction between these institutions and other think-tanks and academic institutions across the world. Phase II of the Chairs Programme is funded for the next four years (2014-2017) by the Netherlands.
“I see the establishment of the WTO Chair at the North-West University in Potchefstroom as recognising the commitment of the academic community in South Africa, which has played a vital role in educating, training and analysing matters related to trade policy and international trade, not only at the national level, but also at the regional and international level.”