The World Trade Organization is gathering in Geneva for its first ministerial meeting in nearly five years to tackle food security threatened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, overfishing and equitable access to Covid vaccines.
WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala opened the four-day meeting on Sunday with the warning “expect a rocky, bumpy road with a few landmines along the way”.
But she told journalists she was “cautiously optimistic” that the more than 100 attending ministers would manage to agree on at least one or two of a long line of pressing issues, and that would be “a success”.
The WTO is under pressure to eke out long-sought trade deals on a range of issues and show unity amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and an impending global hunger crisis.
But since the global trade body only makes decisions by consensus, it can be more than tricky to reach agreements.
Top of the agenda at the gathering in Geneva is the toll Russia’s war in Ukraine – traditionally a breadbasket that feeds hundreds of millions of people – is having on food security.
Credit: rfi
