Geneva – Liberia has a little over two months to finalize its membership in the World Trade Organization to begin reaping the fruits of its association with the global trade monitoring body, according to Mr. Chiedu Osakwe, Director of Accession at the WTO.
Last December, the post-war nation became the eighth member of the Least Developed Country (LDC) to join the organisation since 1995, during the Tenth Ministerial Conference of the WTO in Nairobi, after formal approval by the member ministers.
But despite the accession, the post-war nation still has until June 15, 2016 to ratify its Protocol of Accession and become a WTO member; 30 days after it notifies its acceptance to the WTO Director-General.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with FrontPageAfrica, Mr. Chiedu said while Liberia’s membership has been sealed, there is still some domestic issues that need to be completed before the country can be officially recognized and benefit from its membership with the trade body.
“As you know, WTO accession is a law based and a road-driven process, the next step is for the legislature, the parliament in Liberia to ratify a protocol, it’s a jargon, protocol on the accession of Liberia.
After they have ratified it – and they have to do that before the end of June, in fact before the middle of June, by the 15th of June they have to and after the parliament ratifies it, the President or the Foreign Minister will sign the instrument; it’s called, the instrument on the acceptance of the protocol of accession of the protocol of Liberia and it will be deposited here.”
After ratification by the legislature the protocol will then be deposited with the WTO Director General Mr. Roberto Azevêdowho who is the depository.
“We count from 30 days to zero and they become a member. On day one of membership it will have obligations of things they have to notify and on that day also, the team here in the secretariat will begin to implement the post-accession plan for Liberia,” Mr. Chiedu stated.
The Accession office head acknowledged that Liberia has so far been keeping its part of the bargain.
“The Liberians are keeping their own word domestically to be able to implement the post-accession plan, they have established the institutional framework for doing this, they have established a steering committee, a technical working group and a post-accession monitoring plan.
On this basis there are a number of meetings held, the team here will go to Liberia in early June, they will go to Liberia in June to have a post accession workshop and we don’t’ rest. We follow it up with a workshop on the margins of UNCTAD 14 in Nairobi, Kenya in July.
So, there is a lot that is going on. The Liberians are moving hard, rapidly, aggressively on the basis of a strong leadership of their President and the Director General of the WTO is giving us the staff all the support we need to do this.”
Mr. Chiedu praised the leadership of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf for making major in roads leading to Liberia’s accession to the WTO.
“If you ask me to identify for you what probably is the defining nature of the accession negotiations of Liberia which in many ways we had not seen in the WTO before, one was the leadership of the President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf which was, outstanding. In the midst of the negotiations, if you like to use an expression in vogue, they were hit with the perfect storm.”
Mr. Chiedu recalled that Liberia was emerging out of the ashes of the deadly Ebola virus outbreak and took great strides in pitching to the world trade body why it was essential for Liberia’s economic resurgence which had taken a hit as a result of the epidemic.
“Remember this was a country that came out of a horrendous domestic conflict; the President was dealing with the process of stabilizing the country and unifying it and consolidating it, it does not happen overnight and then you had the public health tragedy of Ebola but what has made Liberia and exemplar for how to fight back; engage, was they did not withdraw or retreat from these challenges or wring their hands; they confronted their problems head on, they then challenged the international community here at the WTO to help them conclude their accession negotiations so that they can use the substance of success of the package and the process to mobilize the international community and to use their accession package in that regard as an anti-Ebola recovery strategy and as we commend President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the role of our Director General was outstanding.”
Mr. Chiedu says his office has been instructed by the WTO Director General to work with Liberia toward completing the next phase leading toward its full membership status.
Two of his colleagues, Dr. Juneyoung Lee and Anna Varyanik are due to travel to Monrovia shortly to ensure that legislative bottleneck is completed to fast track Liberia’s accession process. Mr. Chiedu hailed Liberia’s accession process which was completed in only nine months as a model for others still going through the process for accession.
Dr. Lee, secretary of the Liberia working party at the WTO and co-secretary, Varyanik, have since Liberia’s accession developed a model that is now being called the Liberian model in the WTO accession negotiations, because the negotiations were basically done within nine months.
Said Mr. Chiedu. “We have never done anything like this before. So the leadership of the acceding government always matters; the leadership of the director general of the WTO and in many ways and my colleagues who worked around the clock and our members who supported the process. Now they have a package that Liberia.
We have now worked out a package called the post-accession plan which provides a platform to help Liberia, not only implement its obligations and commitment but also to begin to maximize and reap the rewards and the benefits from its accession package.”
Rodney D. Sieh, [email protected]