…urge parliaments to demand accountability
By Gloria Ikibah
Deputy Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Okezie Kalu, has urged the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to break the prolonged deadlock over food security and investment facilitation, warning that delays are weakening confidence in the multilateral trading system. 
Kalu made the call on Friday in Geneva, Switzerland, while contributing to the 57th Session of the Steering Committee of the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO (PCWTO), attended by WTO Director-General, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, as a special guest.
The session, jointly organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the European Parliament, was co-chaired by Hon. Bernd Lange of the European Parliament and IPU Secretary-General, Ms Anda Filip. It brought together parliamentarians from national and regional legislatures, representatives of the European Parliament and IPU, as well as trade policy experts.
The committee reviewed developments in multilateral trade negotiations, follow-up actions from the 14th WTO Ministerial Conference and recommendations from the PCWTO session held in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
The meeting also considered stronger engagement with parliamentary trade committees, increased participation in PCWTO activities, cooperation with business and civil society, and preparations for the 2026–2027 programme.
Kalu acknowledged progress recorded by the WTO on fisheries subsidies and development issues but said the organisation’s credibility would ultimately depend on its ability to deliver tangible outcomes, particularly for developing countries.
He expressed concern that a permanent solution had yet to be reached on public stockholding for food security, 13 years after the commitment made at the 2013 Bali Ministerial Conference.
Nigeria, he noted, had co-sponsored the demand by the African Group, the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group and the G33 for a permanent solution.
He said: “Thirteen years cannot be explained as an ordinary negotiating delay. Behind every delayed outcome are farmers, workers and families living with the consequences of decisions we defer”.
As an interim measure, Kalu proposed that WTO members consider a waiver under Article IX:3 of the Marrakesh Agreement to cover qualifying public stockholding programmes.
He argued that the absence of consensus should not make an explicit treaty mechanism permanently unusable when countries were facing pressing food security needs.
The Deputy Speaker also raised concerns over the Investment Facilitation for Development Agreement, as he said broad support for the agreement had remained stalled by a single formal objection.
He called for greater accountability from national parliaments and proposed that participating legislatures submit reports on concrete actions taken to advance PCWTO and WTO outcomes before each Steering Committee meeting.
“Yaoundé revealed problems that are already well understood. The challenge now is to create political accountability for governments to explain what they are actually doing about them. If credibility is the issue, accountability must be the response.
“I propose that before each Steering Committee meeting, participating parliaments should report on concrete steps taken within their own jurisdictions to advance the outcomes of Yaoundé and MC14, identifying the responsible authority, the action taken, the government’s stated position and the current status.
“Too often, our discussions focus on what Geneva has or has not done. We should devote equal attention to what our own governments and legislatures have done since the last meeting. Accountability must run in both directions.
“We should hold ourselves to the same standard of accountability we ask of Geneva. Nigeria commits to doing so.
“Distinguished colleagues, behind every delayed outcome are farmers, workers and families living with the consequences of decisions we defer.
“The WTO’s credibility is not measured by the sophistication of its rules. It is measured by whether the members who need it most have rational grounds to trust it.
“Nigeria is not here to add to the diagnosis. We are here to help restore that trust”, Kalu said.
He further cautioned that improving attendance at WTO-related meetings alone would not resolve the challenge of parliamentary relevance in global trade governance.
According to him, many legislatures are briefed only after negotiating positions have already been finalised.
Kalu therefore proposed that future PCWTO sessions should be built around focused economic agendas covering contentious issues such as public stockholding, investment facilitation, the e-commerce moratorium and digital trade rules.
He said this would allow parliamentarians to communicate clear conclusions and areas of disagreement to trade ministers ahead of negotiations.
Kalu, who joined the PCWTO Steering Committee in February 2025, also secured a reaffirmation from the IPU Secretary-General of the organisation’s commitment to work with him towards the successful hosting of the PCWTO event scheduled for Abuja in 2027.
He reaffirmed Nigeria’s commitment to a fair, credible and development-oriented international trading system.
Okonjo-Iweala backs deeper parliamentary role
In her address, Okonjo-Iweala presented an update on WTO reforms covering decision-making, development, special and differential treatment, fairness and dispute settlement.
She noted that while consensus was intended to guarantee an equal voice for all WTO members, its application as unanimity had allowed single objections to block outcomes enjoying broad support.
The WTO Director-General urged parliamentarians to move beyond criticism and put forward practical solutions for rebuilding confidence in the organisation.
She identified greater transparency and improved notifications as possible confidence-building measures and invited written submissions from parliamentarians on the reform process.
Okonjo-Iweala also backed deeper engagement between parliamentarians and Geneva-based actors, including national WTO representatives, the Chair of the General Council, reform facilitators and committee chairs.
Such engagement, she said, will give legislators a more direct role in the reform debate while preserving the member-driven character of the WTO.
The WTO chief acknowledged concerns that the multilateral trading system had not served many developing and poorer countries effectively.
She defended the continued relevance of special and differential treatment and called for a more credible framework that takes different levels of development among WTO members into account.
Okonjo-Iweala also underscored the importance of investment facilitation for developing economies and confirmed that restoring an effective two-tier dispute settlement system remained on the reform agenda, even if its eventual design differs from the previous arrangement.
The discussions came amid wider efforts to reform the multilateral trading system. The WTO has recently warned that global trade is at a critical juncture, with geopolitical tensions and disagreements over trade rules placing additional pressure on the organisation.
