International Trade & Health Conference 2025
Co-organized by the National Commission on International Trade & Health Studies (NCITHS), Thailand together with the International Trade & Health Programme (ITH), South Centre & other partners
When: 28-29 October 2025
Where: Movenpick BDMS Wellness Resort, Bangkok & online
South Centre Statement on UNCTAD XVI Conference “Shaping the Future: Driving Economic Transformation for Equitable, Inclusive and Sustainable Development”
23 October 2025, Geneva, Switzerland
At UNCTAD XVI, the South Centre reaffirmed that an equitable and effective multilateral system must reflect the right of developing countries to participate in and shape the rules of global economic governance, while preserving their policy space and data sovereignty. The success of the XVI Conference will be judged by the extent to which its outcome reaffirms the organisation’s development mission and its unique role in shaping a fairer global economic order.
South Centre Statement to the G20 Trade and Investment Ministerial Meeting (TIMM)
Gqeberha, South Africa | 10 October 2025
– On Priority 3: Trade and Investment Framework to address Green Industrialisation and Sustainable Development
– On Priority 4: WTO Reform and Development Dimension
Trump and the Return of the Nation-State: Hegemony and Crisis of the Neoliberal Global Order
By Humberto Campodonico
This article examines the deepening crisis of the global economic and trade order established after World War II, a crisis accelerated by Donald Trump’s return to the United States presidency. Trump has adopted a stance openly hostile to neoliberal globalization, promoting instead a project centered on reinforcing the nation-state, employing commercial coercion, and using economic power to preserve US hegemony by neutralizing China. His “reciprocal tariffs” and the “Big Beautiful Bill” illustrate this shift, breaking with the World Trade Organization and consolidating elite power while sharply reducing social spending. Far from correcting the inequities of neoliberal globalization, these measures channel the social dislocations of deindustrialization and the impoverishment of the US Rust Belt into an authoritarian discourse of economic sovereignty.
The article situates this process within the broader crisis of democratic capitalism, marked by declining trust in liberal democracy and the rise of populisms and authoritarian regimes that capitalize on discontent without offering redistributive solutions. The analysis draws on Graham Allison’s “Thucydides Trap” and Carla Norrlöf’s reading of Ibn Khaldun to explain both hegemonic rivalry and internal fragmentation. Finally, it explores alternatives to the failed neoliberal order and argues for opening a collective debate on a new international system in which the Global South must play a role.
WTO Reform: Structuring a Positive Agenda for Developing Countries
A Working Document on Structuring Reform Around Legal Principles and Development Priorities, 15 July 2025
By Vahini Naidu, Trade for Development Programme, South Centre
This Working Document outlines a structured contribution to the WTO reform process from a legal and developmental perspective. It organises the wide range of reform issues into seven categories, based on their legal character, institutional handling, and the procedural steps required for meaningful resolution. The aim is to support a more coherent and inclusive reform process by offering a logical framework grounded in the Marrakesh Agreement and reflective of the WTO’s foundational principles. It is intended to assist Members in navigating reform discussions in a manner that is principled, transparent, and responsive to the priorities of developing countries.
WTO Reform: Framing Challenges in the Facilitator-led Process and Strategic Considerations for Developing Countries
By Vahini Naidu, Trade for Development Programme, South Centre
This Informal Note was prepared to inform developing country participation in the next round of Facilitator-led consultations on WTO reform. It provides a critical reflection on the three-track framework proposed by the Facilitator, namely Governance, Fairness and Future, and raises concerns about the framing, legal coherence, and process legitimacy of the emerging reform agenda. The note highlights the risks of implicitly reshaping negotiating priorities through informal structuring, particularly in ways that may disadvantage developing countries or dilute existing legal mandates. It offers strategic considerations and suggested responses to the three guiding questions posed by the Facilitator, underscoring the need to reaffirm treaty-embedded rights such as Special and Differential Treatment, preserve institutional integrity, and ensure that any reform remains firmly anchored in multilateral principles, Member-driven processes, and the development dimension. A separate working document proposing a structured positive agenda for developing countries will follow to complement this analysis.
WTO Reform: Facilitator’s Report on Initial Consultations (JOB/GC/445)
Commentary, 9 July 2025
By Vahini Naidu, Trade for Development Programme, South Centre
This commentary provides a critical analysis of the Facilitator’s Report on Initial Consultations on WTO Reform, highlighting the absence of a shared reform objective, the fragmentation of issues, and the risks posed to developing country priorities, particularly with respect to the Special and Differential Treatment and self-designation, and the consensus-based decision-making. It examines the legal and institutional implications of current reform narratives and cautions against proposals that may entrench rather than correct systemic imbalances.
Harnessing Open Account Trade — A Major Enabler for Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries
Can blockchain technology come to the rescue? Will the African Continental Free Trade Area leverage its Digital Trade Protocol?
By Yuefen Li
The current geopolitical landscape has made domestic resource mobilization an even more important imperative for developing countries. In this context, it is more urgent than ever to combat illicit financial flows (IFFs) whose staggering amount from developing countries has outstripped the combined sum of official development assistance (ODA) and foreign direct investment (FDI) going into the developing world. The IFFs from the financial channel is significant, but the greater proportion of IFFs actually stems from trade channels rather than from financial channels. It is particularly concerning that the flexibility and legitimacy of international trade have been exploited to cover IFFs. Trade mis-invoicing is the largest component of IFFs from developing countries. A major reason for trade being used to undertake illicit, fraudulent or criminal activities is because 80%-85% of the more than US$ 24 trillion international trade is conducted via open account trade (OAT), which has minimum scrutiny as it is conducted on a bilateral basis between the importer and exporter, not transparent and with minimal involvement of the financial institutions and customs authorities. OAT payment does not require documents to prove quality, quantity and other information about the product being shipped and is made through automatic payment systems which lack the oversight provided by any third party. OAT gives trade mis-invoicing great ease, flexibility, minimal cost and minimal risk. Therefore, if the world is serious about combatting IFFs, it is urgent and imperative to close loopholes in the OAT for IFFs, making it transparent, trackable and involving third party monitoring and scrutiny. The functionalities and features of Blockchain technology (BCT), though its implementation is still nascent, can be a good candidate to make OAT more modern, transparent to regulators, traceable, more efficient and above all minimize IFFs. The goals of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)’s Digital Trade Protocol (DTP) include boosting intra-African trade through unifying and harmonizing regulatory framework for Africa’s digital economy and regional trade, promoting cross-border data flows and paperless trade, and enhancing cybersecurity measures. The exploration of Blockchain adoption to reduce OAT’s risks for IFFs and make trade more effective aligns well with DTP’s goals.
South Centre Annual Report 2024
The South Centre carries out multiple activities to support developing countries with policy-oriented research, inputs and advice for negotiations and capacity building. The Report summarizes the South Centre’s activities in 2024 and highlights the contexts in which they were conducted as well as the objectives that were pursued with their implementation.
South Centre Annual Report 2023
The South Centre carries out multiple activities to support developing countries with policy-oriented research, inputs and advice for negotiations and capacity building. See a summary of the South Centre’s activities in the Annual Report 2023.
Trends, Reasons and Prospects of De-dollarization
By Yuefen Li
The 1944 “Bretton Woods Agreement” gave birth to the new international financial system marked by the centrality of the US dollar which is a crucial pillar of the global power of the United States. Over the past eight decades, the asymmetry of the shrinking US economic weight in the world economy and growing dominant role of the dollar has become more and more glaring. The disadvantages of overreliance on the dollar have been keenly felt, especially by developing countries. The recent moves to weaponize the dollar and the payment clearance system have triggered another wave of reassessment by national states and enterprises of the role of the dollar and led to the hitherto most broad-based de-dollarization process covering from Southeast Asia to Latin America and the Middle East. De-dollarization has been incrementally taking place in different forms and led by BRICS and some commodity exporting countries. However, there are many challenges to meaningful de-dollarization. Overall, de-dollarization efforts, despite important progress, have been limited and partial. There has been progress in reducing overreliance on the dollar through foreign exchange reserve diversification and trade invoicing as evidenced by the decline in the dollar’s share of allocated foreign exchange reserves and the increase of trade invoiced and transacted in currencies other than the dollar. However, on aspects requiring the deep financial market and wide network such as foreign exchange transactions, issuance of debt and payment clearance, the dollar’s share has not suffered a decline. To reform the international financial system, the BRICS in particular should continue to take the lead in furthering the de-dollarization efforts.
Trends, reasons and prospects of de-dollarization
By Yuefen Li
The 1944 “Bretton Woods Agreement” gave birth to the new international financial system marked by the centrality of the US dollar which is a crucial pillar of the global power of the United States. Over the past eight decades, the asymmetry of the shrinking US economic weight in the world economy and growing dominant role of the dollar has become more and more glaring. The disadvantages of overreliance on the dollar have been keenly felt, especially by developing countries. The recent moves to weaponize the dollar and the payment clearance system have triggered another wave of reassessment by national states and enterprises of the role of the dollar and led to the hitherto most broad-based de-dollarization process covering from Southeast Asia to Latin America and the Middle East. De-dollarization has been incrementally taking place in different forms and led by BRICS and some commodity exporting countries. However, there are many challenges to meaningful de-dollarization. Overall, de-dollarization efforts, despite important progress, have been limited and partial. There has been progress in reducing overreliance on the dollar through foreign exchange reserve diversification and trade invoicing as evidenced by the decline in the dollar’s share of allocated foreign exchange reserves and the increase of trade invoiced and transacted in currencies other than the dollar. However, on aspects requiring the deep financial market and wide network such as foreign exchange transactions, issuance of debt and payment clearance, the dollar’s share has not suffered a decline. To reform the international financial system, the BRICS in particular should continue to take the lead in furthering the de-dollarization efforts.
This is an advanced draft of the Research Paper.
