Although the Doha Round was launched with the promise to address their development concerns so much so to call it a ‘Development Round’, the emerging patterns in the ongoing negotiations over the past five years suggest that development was just the rhetoric to get developing countries around to agree to launch of the new round. The spirit of Doha is hardly visible in the ongoing negotiations and as per the modalities being discussed developing countries are being pushed to accept commitments to provide market access in agriculture and non-agricultural products in more than full reciprocity basis. There has been little progress if at all on the development issues such as making the special and differential treatment ‘precise, operational and effective’. The multilateral trading system that is not able to address the concerns of the majority of its membership cannot be sustainable in the long run. Against that background, the World Trade and Development Report 2006 (WTDR06), second in the series launched by RIS, examines the emerging trends and patterns in the global trading system overall and in select important areas, highlights the growing asymmetries especially from a development perspective and puts together an agenda for reform.

WTDR06 has been partially supported by the UNDP, New York and the Commonwealth Secretariat, London