India Seeks Leadership Role on Behalf of WTO Developing Nations

India felt snubbed following the World Trade Organization’s talks in Nairobi in December, and the resulting decision to table Doha, so the country’s leaders have become much more vocal about WTO affairs than usual. In fact, reports have now surfaced that India seeks to lead a contingent of WTO member states from the developing world intent on having a greater voice in the organization’s affairs.

India felt snubbed following the World Trade Organization’s talks in Nairobi in December, and the resulting decision to table Doha, so the country’s leaders have become much more vocal about WTO affairs than usual. In fact, reports have now surfaced that India seeks to lead a contingent of WTO member states from the developing world intent on having a greater voice in the organization’s affairs.

India’s campaign will start with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Africa in February. There, India will try to gain support for reopening the Doha round of trade negotiations to boost prospects for developing and poor nations. After that, according to a report by TheHindu.com, the following months will also see India hosting a series of “strategy workshops” with other developing and poor nation “stakeholders” and summits with groups from various African nations and other developing world organizations. 

A senior official in the Indian government commented, “We will soon set up occasions like the recently held Africa Summit in India. The Prime Minister does an outstanding job of flagging the common interests of the developing world during such occasions.” He added that India wished to adopt a “collaborative approach” with African countries to gain support for its position. The Indian government believes Africa will become the key to India’s future strategy and power play within the WTO.

India’s move to take a leadership role comes after widespread criticism by many who felt the wealthier nations of the world took too much control over the recent Nairobi talks. Within India alone, a number of political opponents to the current administration seized on the opportunity to criticize the government for not doing enough to protect Indian interests and those of the developing world at the Ministerial Conference. These groups call upon the government to assume a role similar to the one adopted by the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when it asserted that it spoke on behalf of all nations within the “American sphere of influence.”

A primary focus of India’s new strategy will revolve around a series of so-called “strategy workshops.” India announced that the first of these would take place in early January. These meetings will allow participants to gather input from other nations and influential bodies within India in an effort to best represent those interests in the WTO. India seeks to create a strong, unified game plan on behalf of all developing and poor nations, and sees this as the only means of ensuring their interests will receive fair representation. 

According to Biswajit Dhar, a trade expert and professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, India’s long held alliances with other developing nations like Brazil and South Africa have faded over the last few years. As a result, these nations were incapable of coordinating their efforts as effectively as the richer nations whose interests more closely align with the WTO’s. Stepping into this void, India believes it can take the reins and lead the developing world in establishing new agendas that had better represent their interests. 

Unfortunately, for India, the Nairobi Ministerial Declaration reaffirmed the WTO’s pre-eminence as a global forum for international trade rules and governance. Had it stalled again, other organizations might have taken a stronger role, and that fragmentation could have given greater voice to less wealthy nations. India has floated the idea of forming a new trade organization made up of 40+ disgruntled developing and poorer nations, and may continue to discuss this as a possible alternative means of creating greater trade opportunities for these nations.