Amartya Sen at WTO
NOBEL Laureate, Prof Amartya Sen visited the WTO HQ on Wednesday and signed the WTO Wall. He spoke at the opening of the academic year of the Geneva Graduate Institute on “What is the use of Economics?".
WTO DG, Pascal Lamy said, "What Prof. Sen teaches us is that to ensure that trade opening works for the poor, trade reforms need to be accompanied by policies that guarantee an equitable distribution of trade gains. Health and education, safety nets and access to credit are part of poverty reduction strategies as much as economic growth itself. These complementary policies protect the poor against the potentially destabilizing effects of trade opening, while ensuring that trade unlocks income-generating potential for all layers of society. This requires overall coordination between government institutions as well as multilaterally in all areas of international cooperation. In other words, it requires a strong domestic and international set-up. In many ways, we are all in dire need of institutional capacity building.