. /.WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/COMTD/W/117
16 June 2003
(03-3142)
Committee on Trade and Development
TRADE POLICY CLINICS
Note by the Secretariat
1. This is prepared in connection with a commitment made by the Secretariat at the 44th Session
of the Committee on Trade and Development to provide Members with an information note on the
Director-General's initiative of establishing "trade policy clinics" (clinics).
A. DEFINITION AND OBJECTIVES
2. The purpose of the clinics is to help answer trade-policy issues identified by Members and
provide diagnosis and practical recommendations on how they might be addressed.  Clinics will make
it possible to fill in gaps in planned technical assistance and answer the types of questions that are not
covered by our present activities.  Clinics will also provide the Secretariat with a mechanism torespond quickly and flexibly to crises or urgent technical assistance needs over the course of the year.
As clinics will be demand-driven, they will be tailored to meet the specific concerns of the requesting
Member.  A clinic could, for instance, examine issues related to the trade policy process of the
beneficiary and look at how the different stages of the process can be strengthened.  In this regard, it
could explore to what extent the Member in question is able to identify its strategic trade interestseffectively in the light of its overall development strategy or to manage the policy process
domestically and internationally.  A clinic could also, for example, look at actual implementation of
international obligations and their translation into domestic legislation, compliance with notification
requirements and capacity of legal enforcement agencies, customs and standards organisations.
Clinics could also help Members, who request such assistance, with preliminary assessment of their
technical cooperation and capacity building needs.  Diagnosis and recommendations from clinics,
where appropriate, will be fed into the WTO regular training/technical assistance process.
B. B
ENEFICIARIES
3. The Secretariat response to a clinic request will depend on the resources available.  A regional
approach will be favoured in cases where several Members in the region share similar problems or
concerns.  Moreover, clinics will be coordinated with existing technical assistance and capacity
building activities, such as the Integrated Framework and JITAP.  This will help avoid duplication andoptimise the use of scarce Secretariat resources.  Therefore, a country which already benefits from the
Integrated Framework (IF) or JITA P should not be able to request a clinic.  However, a clinic could
recommend early inclusion of the beneficiary, if it is an LDC, into the IF Programme.  The initial
work would then feed into the more co mprehensive IF diagnostic studies (DTIS).
4. Three groups  initially will have priority to benefit from clinics:
• Countries emerging from crises or conflicts which need to start from "ground zero" in
developing their trade regime.
• Countries in transition which have an urgent need for market-oriented legislative and trade
policy assistance.WT/COMTD/W/117
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• Small economies who face very specific problems.
C. MODALITIES /IMPLEMENTATION
5. The Institute for Training and Technical Cooperation (ITTC) will coordinate, administer and
deliver clinics, in cooperation with the Trade Policies Review Division and the DevelopmentDivision.  Staff from other Divisions could also be asked to join a clinic mission, depending on the
needs expressed by beneficiaries.  Teams put together for such missions will usually be very small
and their composition will be kept flexible because of the ad hoc  nature of the activity.
6. There is already considerable Secretariat experience in evaluating trade policies and practices,
particularly in conducting Trade Policy Reviews (TPR).  Clinics will utilise this expertise and
possibly build synergies with Trade Policy Reviews, as is already happening in some cases.
7. Following up on recommendations from clinics will mainly be the responsibility of the
beneficiary Member.  Taking into account capacity constraints of most beneficiaries, the WTO
Secretariat will accommodate, as much as possible, the priorities identified by a clinic beneficiary
when preparing and planning the regular WTO Training/Technical Assistance annual plan in order to
make it well targeted and more meaningful.
8. There will be an opportunity to involve other international organisations whose particular
expertise is relevant to the needs of the beneficiary by mobilising their resources and knowledge both
in conducting clinics, putting forward recomm endations as well as following up on them.
9. The Secretariat will organise a pilot trade policy clinic very soon in order to test these ideas
and gain operational experience.  This will provide an opportunity to refine the concept and elaborate
further on its different operational aspects before coming back to the Committee on Trade andDevelopment for more guidance.
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