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Marconini and SauvĂŠ
Trade in Services (GATS). For many least developed countries and small and vulnerable economies, as well as a number of countries seeking admission to the WTO, this is an important responsibility, especially because their expertise in trade is relatively weak or is embodied in only a few officials in ministries of trade and foreign affairs. Regulatory agencies and other ministries usually have even less capacity. Short-term training directed at overcoming these knowledge gaps can be useful in many countries, and regional and international organizations are involved in delivering this type of trade-related technical assistance.2 Regional organizations typically focus their assistance on preferential liberalization initiatives, whereas international organizations (with the exception of the WTO) tend to focus on multilateral and preferential liberalization endeavors. More pressing needs in trade-related technical assistance are the needs to acquire the analytical tools to determine a country’s readiness to liberalize; develop government-wide negotiating strategies; assess the gender, poverty reduction, and human health impacts of service market opening; and help providers of domestic services take full advantage of the market access opportunities arising from regional and multilateral liberalization efforts. Meeting these needs is conducive to harnessing the pro-development potential of service liberalization beyond the GATS and the intricacies of trade agreements covering services. Sustained technical assistance and training efforts directed at these issues have not yet materialized. The issues deserve immediate attention. For the most part, this entails the documentation (in the form of country-, region-, and sectorspecific case studies) and dissemination of knowledge on best practices in developed and developing countries. North-South and South-South learning are equally important channels. The diversity of expertise is more easily achieved through international organizations than through bilateral donors in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Negotiating without a Proper Service Road Map The preparations for international negotiations should occur after national development strategies have been established. This is often not the case because countries become involved in negotiating processes without having determined national policy positions. For this reason, many developing countries are not ready politically or administratively to respond to complex regulatory and policy issues that arise in service negotiations. This is particularly the situation if negotiations involve more