Jean-Pierre Lehmann, Professor of International Political Economy at IMD & Founding Director of The Evian Group @ IMD, moderated the session. He began by asking whether the WTO was an obstacle or a vehicle of development in the context of what he called 'the slow death of the Doha Round'.

For Manzoor Ahmad, Independent Consultant and Former Director of the Food and Agriculture Organization Liaison Office, the Doha Round has a huge potential for LDCs regarding industrial goods, agriculture, trade facilitation, and fisheries subsidies. If it fails, the most fragile countries will be left out of the international economic system. He suggested that Pascal Lamy should do the same as Arthur Dunkel during the Uruguay Round and take the initiative to put a text on the table.

Michaela Dodini, representing the EU, insisted on the fact that she did not agree with the proposition of this session that we were now in an 'after Doha' scenario. While recognizing the difficulties in the negotiations, she asserted that the EU was not giving up on the Doha Round and that concrete deliverables were not only doable but necessary for LDCs. She also described the important unilateral contribution of the EU towards development besides the WTO, thanks to the EU GSP (generalized system of preferences) or Aid for Trade initiative (EU is one of the main donors).

According to Debapriya Bhattacharya, Special Adviser on LDCs at UNCTAD, said that talking of a post-Doha is not very optimistic. We would not be confronted by a WTO-related problem but rather a more general governance problem. He asserted that we should have a minimum package for LDCs during the December Ministerial Conference. He said that development matters should not be held hostage to market access issues.

During the Q&A with the audience, a participant called for a solution to the cotton issue, while another participant called for concrete results in the field rather than lengthy and costly discussions in Geneva. Somebody questioned whether it was still relevant that the WTO continues to use the system of Rounds in its institutional framework.