What have the poorest countries to gain from the Doha Development Agenda (DDA)?

This paper sets out to examine the likely benefits accruing to developing countries from the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) as it currently stands. In pursuit of this aim, the paper draws from the insights of both the economic and the political economy literatures in pursuit of a more fulsome account of the likely results of the DDA for poor countries. The paper begins with a review of the projected aggregate gains accruing to developing countries from a concluded DDA. It then marries this aggregate picture with an exploration of the progress in the negotiations to sharpen an insight into just how poor the results of a concluded DDA are likely to be for the least developed. In so doing, the paper reviews progress in the negotiations generally as well as more specifically in the area that has emerged as the core ‘development content’, namely agriculture (focusing on the issues of food security, import surges and the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM)). The paper concludes that a review of both the aggregate projections of the likely results of the DDA and progress in the negotiations highlights more precisely just how poor, and problematic, the outcome of the Doha Round will be for the least developed.