The Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has stressed the importance of “free flow of trade” in Africa to help achieve the goals of global climate change.
Okonjo-Iweala disclosed this during the Africa Adaptation Summit in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
In her words, “You cannot really talk about adaptation without considering that you need a free flow of trade. Because you might have the finances but if trade policies are not right, those who need new technologies for adaptation – if there is no free flow of goods and ideas – may not be able to use the money to get at it.
“The role of the WTO is to make sure that once countries have this financing they are not blocked by adverse trade policies that will keep them from having access to the goods and services they need to adapt.
“We just need countries to be very active in actually implementing what they are saying and of course, the absence of the leaders here sends some signals – you have several leaders who came all the way from Africa to participate in this conference, and they were looking forward to seeing leaders from Europe and elsewhere”.
