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Caribbean: Patricia Scotland- sixth and first lady Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, landed in Geneva in order to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Director-General of World Trade Organization Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala ahead of MC 12.
She shared her experience via a video message on Twitter and stated, “I am delighted to be here to attend the MC 12 Trade Event, which has been long-awaited. The opportunity for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Commonwealth to work in partnership in order to respond to the economic crisis that now faces the world is absolutely amazing.”
The Secretary-General signed the MoU with the WTO on June 12, 2022 (Sunday); the MoU enables the government to concentrate not just on trade facilitation but also on small and medium-sized businesses and women and young people to have an opportunity to take advantage of the future. It also allows sharing research to know what will work or what not.
The government also organized a Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, which is going to be held next week, and at the Business Form, there is much more for the government to do.
After the Patricia Scotland video message, Director General of World Trade Organization Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala took her official Twitter account to share an update.
The major reason behind signing the memorandum is to strengthen their cooperation and enhance the participation of Commonwealth countries in the multilateral trading system.
After signing the contract, Director-General of WTO Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala stated, “How delighted I am to receive Baroness Scotland here and to sign the MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) to cement our joint cooperation. There are so many ways in which we can work together to try to ensure a level playing field.”
She added, “First of all, I strongly believe that trade can be an instrument for inclusion. We ought to be working harder on what fair rules will empower women to trade and empower Micro, Medium and Small enterprises and entrepreneurs to join regional and global value chains.
We need to make those rules, and I am actually very proud to say that one of the sets of the rules we are already making is for e-commerce because women and Micro, Medium, and Small Enterprises during the pandemic showed that, really digital trade can be very beneficial, said Director-General.”
She concluded by saying that she was looking forward to working with them.
In response to the Director-General, Patricia Scotland stated that she agrees with them because one of the issues that they have is many of their member states don’t have technical knowledge and expertise.
So, this MoU will merge the power of the WTO and the accessibility of the Commonwealth Secretariat to our members, bringing those two together by doing the research and the analytical basis and then giving our members the ability, knowledge and expertise to implement. It is a real opportunity for empowerment.
And 60 percent of the Commonwealth is under the age of 30, so the country is looking at young people. And young people and women are the ones driving the MSMEs network.
According to Patricia Scotland, they can work on youth better while working together and stated that they are both determined to leave no one behind.
