4 March 2019, Geneva, Switzerland - UNITAR and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recently signed an agreement to launch a joint online course on Agriculture in Trade Agreements to be delivered in Russian language for Europe and Central Asia.
The 4-week course will cover global issues as well as key topics with a specific focus on the post-Soviet countries such as regional experiences in implementing multilateral and regional trade agreements in post-Soviet countries.
The course is designed to assist professionals from ministries of agriculture, ministries of economic development and other government and related authorities, who are directly involved in the formulation and implementation of trade or agricultural policies in the 12 post-Soviet countries, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Participants from regional and international organizations, the private sector and academia can also benefit from the course.
In the preparation of this course, FAO draws from its extensive experience with providing guidance, capacity building and technical advice to its member countries on the topic of agricultural trade policy and multilateral trade negotiations, as well as its normative work in the framework of international conventions and agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS agreement).
At the end of the course, participants are expected to be able to better understand the international regulatory frameworks governing trade and its implementation mechanism as well as the eventual implications of the recent WTO Ministerial Conferences; discuss the significance of non-tariff measures (NTMs) on the international trade and the relevance of WTO Agreements regarding such measures on the national trade policies; formulate agricultural trade strategies tailored to trading partners, taking into consideration the differences in treatment of agriculture between the regional trade agreements and multilateral trade agreements.