Date: April 10^th
Time: 9:30 through 12:30
Venue: Center of Concern. 1225 Otis St., NE  Washington DC 20017  (nearest Metro Station Brookland-CUA on the red line)

During more than two decades, international financial institutions have exerted significant influence on shaping the trade policies of their borrowing countries. With the advent of the WTO, a system of legal rules came to codify the degree of trade liberalization that developing countries had achieved unilaterally. Since the inception of the WTO, and building upon the 1995 Ministerial Declaration on Coherence, the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO, as well as regional trade agreements and development banks, are more consciously orchestrating similar efforts under the rubric of pursuing "policy coherence." There are growing concerns that the "policy coherence" being pursued by financial and trade institutions means nothing else than greater coordination in ensuring the protection of the interests of a small number of large transnational corporations at the expense of sustainable development, gender equality, human rights and democratic choices at the local level.

In September 2003, during the IMF / World Bank meetings, NGOs doing advocacy with financial institutions, trade agreements, and UN processes addressing trade and financial policies, gathered for the first time to discuss the policy coherence being pursued by international financial and trade institutions; its current and potential impacts on poverty, the environment and the overall development prospects of Third World countries and begin to chart a path forward.

This briefing and strategy session will provide a venue for civil society groups to take stock of latest developments on policy coherence, strategize around upcoming advocacy opportunities and continue to advance an alternative agenda on "policy coherence" built on the values embedded in the international human rights framework and environmental agreements.

Registration: Please RSVP by email at rbw@coc.org. For any questions contact Aldo Caliari at (202) 635  2757 x 123.