Here you can find the "Popular Solutions" which are the result of the feedback from the participants of each session. These are preliminary results as we are still in the second evaluation process after the Global Economic Symposium 2009. They reflect the most valuable approaches to fight the challenges presented within the session. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the popular solutions you can mail us and fill out further feedback forms which will be counted by us.
The four main themes of the Global Economic Symposium 2009 were:
1. The Global Economy
2. The Global Society
3. The Global Polity
4. The Global Environment
For a short overview please use the following gallery. Just click on the pictures to enlarge them and follow the arrows through all the popular solutions. If you want more details on the solutions and the discussion you should consider the text summary located under the gallery providing more than the "Popular Solutions".
The Global Economy / Balancing Risk Taking and Financial Innovation
Solution 1 - Improve regulation and reduce regulatory imperfections
The crisis has revealed serious deficiences in the regulatory framework such as procyclical capital adequacy requirements. The building of capital buffers in good times which then can be drawn down in bad times, seems a promising option to reduce these deficiences.
Solution 2 - Improve the tax treatment of systemic institutions
Systemic institutions have been at the core of contagion effects in the current crisis. The tax treatment of these actors must be reformed under the objectives to give incentives for systemic institutions to avoid taking excessive risks and to remove the financial burden of solvency guarantees from the taxpayers to the stockholders (debt for equity swaps).
Solution 3 - Provide more capital for risk reduction
Financial institutions have suffered from lack of access to liquidity to reduce risks when they needed to do that. Higher liquidity reserves and better liquidity management are badly needed to relax liquidity risks. To account for the cross-border nature of most financial operations, the reform of rules have to tackle the problem of trapped pools of liquidity within individual jurisdictions especially when these jurisdictions are far from being coordinated.
Solution 4 - Discourage regulatory arbitrage
Given the uncoordinated nature of todays regulations in international financial markets subject to different national jurisdictions, international coordination with common minimum requirements is absolutely vital. Otherwise, regulatory arbitrage will render nationally isolated reform measures ineffective.
The Global Economy / Fighting against Poverty in the Crisis Aftermath
Solution 1 - Reduce barriers against migration of skilled workers to potential host countries inside and outside regional groupings
Migration
Solution 2 - Formalise employment contracts in all countries to allow employees to find access to social security schemes
A rising part of employment escapes “formalisation” in the sense that employees are insured in social security schemes. Alternative ways to be insured in private-sector insurance schemes are often not available or inattractive for low-income employees. This is why governments should give incentives to employers to formalise employment contracts with mandatory contributions to social insurance networks. Broadening the contribution base with low contribution rates should help to both raise the attractiveness of formal employment contracts and keep side-costs such the implicit tax on labour low.
Solution 3 - Develop social infrastructure for the low-income strata in developing countries’ population
Mandatory education, primary health services and rural infrastructure are essential ingredients of pro-poor policies. While some poor countries have accepted the importance of developing social infrastructure as an important pro-poor policy tool, many other governments still shy away from engagement especially in rural areas, sometimes for political economy reasons to concentrate on support of their political powerhouse in urban areas. Foreign donors, regional development banks and other international and regional actors should put pressure on these governments to condition their aid to decisive actions in social infrastructure, in particular in rural areas.
The Global Economy / New Knowledge Creation Regimes
Solution 1 - Bridge the gap between innovators, knowledge providers and money providers in order address issues like poverty and environment
Interaction between the three groups have been insufficient so far. Governments should facilitate the creation of so-called knowledge groups in small communities and allow for reconciling different motivations and objectives of the three actors.
Solution 2 - Negotiate new rules on intellectual property rights (IPR)
IPRs should build on concerted international regulations with enough room for country-specific and sector-specific solutions. The importance difference between knowledge creation and commercialisation with their different underlying motivation should find explicit access into the setting up of new rules.
Solution 3 - Ensure that public funding of innovations leads to use in public domain
Public funding should be conditioned to free access of the results within the public domain. In international negotiations, this objective should be enforced through reciprocal concessions.
Solution 4 - Governments should fund demonstration projects in order to test the workability of new rules.
Given the reluctance of innovators and knowledge providers to submit themselves to new rules, demonstration projects limited in scope and time should be offered by governments as a “training field “ for wider all encompassing rules.
The Global Economy / The Psychology of Financial Crises
Solution 1 - Introduce better insurance for homeowners through new assets.
The financial crisis has revealed serious deficiencies with respect to the possibility of homeowners to buy insurance products in real-estate risk markets. With improved financial data base and improved data disclosures such new products should be soon available for retail customers.
Solution 2 - Improve information systems to deal with degrees of irrationality in finacial markets.
Usual information systems depart from business as usual situations and completely neglect episodes of panic and herding behaviour. There is strong need for establishing
Solution 3 - Establishing early warning
It has been a major difficulty for central banks to identify ex ante the emergence of excessive bubbles in wealth markets. A special unit close to the central bank should be established to provide an imparical basis for preventing widespread asset price bubbles.
Solution 4 - Raise the awareness of policymakers with respect to the existence of multiple equilibria in financial markets.
The presence of more than one equilibrium in a market makes the role of psychological factors like animal spirits more demanding. There is strong need to enlighten policymakers and other actors in financial markets of the existence and the consequences of multiple equilibria being far apart from each other concerning their desirability.
The Global Economy / The Post-Crisis Global Division of Labour
Solution 1 - Structural reforms must be combined with expansionary macroeconomic policies
Structural reforms remain important to ease transitions in the labour markets, but the economic crisis requires them to be combined with strong expansionary macroeconomic policies. A crisis is usually a good time to push reforms, but only if the economies in the rest of the world are healthy and can generate sufficient aggregate demand. This condition is not met in a global slump. Hence, bringing the economy back is vital before reforms are started.
Solution 2 - Teach basic skills and content and strengthen life-long learning in companies
Without doubt, basic skills and expert knowledge are crucial and should be taught in schools and universities around the globe. Yet, technological progress often makes specific skills obsolete. Hence, we require companies to enable and finance life-long learning so that the workforce is able to deal with the changes. Fincancing needs to come from companies, but governments should subsidize if there are positive economy-wide externalities.
Solution 3 - Create a welfare state that compensates losers from globalization without undermining work incentives.
Globalization creates winners and losers. A good welfare state needs to redistribute some of the gains from globalization to the losers, but must not undermine the incentives to work and search for new employment.
The Global Economy / Managing Transformed Global Imbalances
Solution 1 - Focus on reforms of financial market regulations as a vehicle for managing global macroeconomic imbalances
Deficient financial market regulations
Solution 2 - Abandon uncoordinated manipulation of exchange rates
There is a vast variety of intermediate exchange rate policies between free floating and fixed rates. So-called dirty floating or varying degrees of exchange rate pegs have disturbed expectatations of market participants and triggered higher transaction costs in currency trading than necessary. Such interventions increased uncertainty beyond levels which exist in the system of asymmetry between international currencies and satellite currencies. As a second-best alternative, international coordination on the timing and sequencing of interventions into currency markets should be strengthened. This could help to stabilise expecatations.
Solution 3 - Discourage excessive bubbles by monetary policies
Excessive bubbles have been responsible for aggravating imbalances. Monetary policies being blind on bubbles so far should focus much more on pricking bubbles in asset markets early enough.
The Global Society / The New Wave of Social Entrepreneurship
Solution 1 - "Reverse Engineering": Help Existing Businesses to develop a Social Dimension
In addition to supporting to set up of new, usually small firms that have an explicit social responsibility, larger, conventional commercial entrepreneurs should be provided incentives to become social entrepreneurs. There are potentially numerous ways to provide such incentives. One way is to offer private companies attractive loans in return to them committing to pursuing specific socially beneficial programs, another to help them hire or other services suitable disabled workers.
Solution 2 - Raise New Capital For Social Investment
The current way most private foundations are organized and regulated in developed countries is they are required to donate or grant only somewhere between 3 and 6% of their assets in any given year to charities. The other 94 to 97% of their assets are generally invested in traditional investment instruments that have no social purpose. An obvious source of significant new capital governments could create for social investment without having to put the money up themselves would be to require that foundations invest at least 10 percent of their assets in social investments. This requirement alone would create a capital pool of tens of billions of dollars which could be dedicated to affordable housing, micro-finance, social enterprise, green energy, or other socially beneficial projects.
Solution 3 - Further Institutional change
Mainstream entrepreneurs have an entire infrastructure which is designed to assist them to be successful. It includes bankers, lawyers, accountants, analysts, the venture capital community, advisors, consultants and others who, in varying quality, help entrepreneurs to succeed. Social entrepreneurs have no such infrastructure. In addition to this infrastructure, mainstream entrepreneurs have a well-developed tools for demonstrating their contributions to society. These tools frequently exclude the additional contributions social entrepreneurs make, however. An institutional framework is warranted that also assists social entrepreneurs in being successful and in demonstrating their specific contributions to solving societal problems. One element of this framework is reembedding capital and other markets where mainstream entrepreneurs caused (or may cause) damage to society in their proper social and environmental context. Another element is sector-building, which means establishing the notion of a social entrepreneurial sector that demonstrates the economic and social relevance of social entrepreneurship. In addition to sector building, measures of the true, social value of social entrepreneurial activities need to be improved. Unlike measures of risk-adjusted returns on investment, measures of socially-adjusted returns on investment are still not available.
Solution 4 - Expand Debt Advisory Services and Consultancy Services for Investors in Developing Countries
In spite of microfinance and other innovative measures that facilitates start-ups and survival of small firms as well as job creation in less developed countries, firm failure is an important issue. More services to investors are called for that prevent them from accumulating excessive debts and bankruptcy. Socially responsive banks, non-governmental institutions, and regulators should engage more extensively in financial education of, and debt advice for small firms in developed countries. In addition to providing such financial services, more consultancy and support for firms in developed countries is warranted with respect to production technology. Replacing workers by machines is a general trend but may not always be the most effective strategy for firms in developing countries, especially not from a social perspective.
The Global Society / Content and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility
Solution 1 - Business, governments, and NGOs should more closely cooperate in identifying needs for corporate social responsibility (CSR), in search for appropriate CSR actions and reporting.
So far, CSR policies were mainly in the hands of one actor, neglecting the two other . This has been fatal because all three actors should be on level playing field with respect to information
Solution 2 - Governments and NGOs should honour firms with outstanding CSR activities by awarding prizes and signalling more support in future initiatives.
In the past, many CSR activities of firms remained unnoticed in the public thus discouraging firms from taking
Solution 3 - NGOs, governments and business should set up standards for CSR reporting.
CSR activities are manifold,diverse and therefore very difficult to rate. Standardisation helps to make business accountable.
The Global Society / Making Migration Work after the Crisis
Solution 1 - Improve coordination between home and host countries on criteria of migration subject to different timespans (permanent, temporary, seasonal)
So far, home countries have kept a low profile on migration while host countries remained defensive if not resistant against low-skill migrants. In view of rising labour mobility, better information on working possibilities, and higher push pressure in home countries, there is no alternative to channel migration via coordination on a number of issues all being targeted to stabilise flows and include a medium-term perspective. Such coordination include exchange protocol, candidate selection, pre-training, safe remittance transfer, health and safety along with social health and return mechanism. Coordination could go
Solution 2 - Ameliorate integration of migrants into all spheres of host countries’ societies
Host countries’ societies will have to understand that migration will stay with them as an issue and that their economies can draw much more benefit from migration than actually perceived, for instance to reduce the fiscal costs of migration and to offer valuable services in future sectors, Programmes to integration migrants comprise better access to language training, equal opportunity hiring practices, flexible apprenticeships and social services at communuity levels.
Solution 3 - Doing easy things first: liberalise migration regulations for those who do not directly compete with vulnerable groups in host countries .
Anti-migration sentiments are still strong and they are unlikely to relax after the crisis. This is why improvements in this field are the easiest to achieve in activities where employment is a complement rather than a substitute to local native employment. A pro-active policy of host countries and private personnel service companies would see the scope of this activities rising in future due to demographic changes and sectoral structural shifts to services.
The Global Society / Overcoming Inequality through Education
Solution 1 - Shaping education techniques and contents
Traditional class-room techniques and content learning are as inappropriate for raising motivation for learning as top-down patrimonial attitudes suggesting a fixed stock of superior knowledge. What is needed are radical shifts towards helping pupils to become more self-confident, towards techniques of “learning how to learn”, “trial and error” approaches, and experimental learning. To become accepted as new principles of learning, such shifts must be supported by a much deeper foundation of education on ethical and humanistic grounds and must offer better targeted incentives for teachers.
Solution 2 - Ensure that access to education is not impeded by social fragmentation and divide between parents from different cultural origins
Education infrastructure is highly fragmented due to different school systems (private and public schools) and social and cultural divides between parents. While diversity and opportunities for choice are principally welcome, politics must ensure that diversity does not spell divide. Sufficiently funded grant schemes must be set up to decouple access to education from financial constraints which many parents face. Such schemes must be neutral with respect to the cultural background of pupils and be solely targeted to develop the educational potential of each pupil as best as possible.
Solution 3 - Concentrating on inequality in girl’s education
Improving access to girl’s education is a particularly important desideratum. There is a multitude of best practice measures well established in many grass-root World Bank projects which can ensure both better preconditions and the operation of active participation of girls in acquiring skills through education. It is
The Global Society / Dealing with the New Social Divides
Solution 1 - Improve women participation
Globally, women are very much handicapped with respect to civic rights and economic chances . Among other, measures to be taken against this handicap include improvement of girl’s education, extension of microfinance to support women entrpreneurship and establishing rights of landownership for women.
Solution 2 - Relieve hardship related to current and future financial and economic crises
The current crisis has deepened the social divide between those heavily affected by the crisis and those who could take precautionary actions against the crisis. In those countries where this divide was deep a social safety network was not in place. This is why these countries should attach a high priority to developing or elaborating systems of social insurance, particularly in spheres of unemployment insurance and pensions.
Solution 3 - Adjust pension systems to improve their bad weather qualities in times of crises
Pension systems based on defined contribution schemes have suffered largely during the crisis and the individuals have been exposed to large risks.
The Global Polity / Fixing Failed Multilateralism
Solution 1 - Enhancing multilateral effort among G5 countries.
Multilateral agreements have proven the more difficult to negotiate the higher the heterogeneity of partner countries. This is why it seems useful to concentrate efforts to multilateral agreements on the homogenous group of G5.
Solution 2 - Create a World Climate Organisation.
Climate issues are inadequately dealt with in either bilateral agreements, or the WTO or the
Solution 3 - Intensify multilateral efforts to anchor the perception of a global citizenship in international policies.
Todays policies treat citizens as national constituencies. This is not consistent with increasing mobility of labour and cross-border externalities affecting the well-being of citizens. This is why the perception of a global citizenship is vital.
The Global Polity / Towards Global Trade under Global Rules
Solution 1 - Make the WTO fit for an ever more complex global trading environment dealing with global business including investment and IP protection issues.
For the time being, the WTO is ill-prepared for anchoring and operating rules for global business going far beyond global trade only. The way to tackle this issue is to apply the principle of “variable geometry” or “integration at different speeds” with a set of core rules ( “GATT 1947”) which are binding for each member while rules for further issues (investment, IP protection etc) should be voluntary for those who want to participate ( plurilateral agreements).
Solution 2 - Relax the stress and stalemate impasse in negotiations on agricultural trade by complementing a trade agreement by an agreement on food security.
Until the most recent past, developing countries having strong rural constituences such as
Solution 3 - Multilateralise rules in regional integration schemes as a way to reconcile regionalism and multilateralism
Regional trade agreements (RTAs) have mushroomed and will stay. The WTO has been permissive in accepting RTAs as an exception. A way to reconcile regionalism und multilateralism consists in
The Global Polity / The Future of Global Financial Governance
Solution 1 - Making regulation more effective
The current crisis exposed existing regulations to a stress test. They failed. Regulations caused procyclicality, they differed widely among countries thus encouraging regulatory arbitrage , and they excluded important actors from say and responsibility. Financial institutions will be strengthened first by including regulators from emerging markets, especially those operating sovereign wealth funds, and second by narrowing the discrepancy between national regulations through agreements on joint minimum objectives and standards of regulation.
Solution 2 - Giving international institutions, such as the IMF, more “teeth” for surveillance functions and for monitoring those national policies that risk a potentially contagious financial crisis.
The IMF and its younger supporter, the
Solution 3 - Reduce the systemic problems which result from the existence of too large and complex financial institutions
Size of banks in trouble has proven to be the core of systemic problems. This suggests to adopt measures which prevent financial institutions to become too large to fail, such as strict competition policies, introducing capital requirements that are progressive in the size of the business, and preventing both narrow banks and investment banks from engaging in activities that present potential conflicts of interest.
The Global Polity / Repairing Failed States
Solution 1 - Legalise the consumption of narcotics under public supervision to undermine income generation from drugs trade
Trade in drugs has been one of the major revenue sources of failed states. Unless this income source is dried up, pressure on rulers in failed states faces the risk of becoming obsolete. While the legalisation of using narcotics is controversially discussed in many high-income countries, a cautious and gradual strategy to legalise drug use under public supervision may offer a way to diminish this income flow. Yet, to be successful, a longer term perspective must be taken together with concerted actions among major countries which act as trading routes .
Solution 2 - Rethink the role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
Todays NGOs are numerous, sometimes oversized and well equipped with funds. Unintentionally, NGOs with their resources undermine endeavours to build a central state providing public goods to its entire constituency.This is due to the fact that their targets are not necessarily directed towards building a state. Strategies to give their activities a stronger and more uniform focus on building a state could be instrumental to channel the resources of NGOs into a beneficial direction.
Solution 3 - Change development aid
Official aid must become more conditional on governments to fulfill time-bound specific measures. That will ensure that recipient governments enforce rules and laws and that those in power play by the same rules. Aid in general should be more trade-oriented including opening of markets in donor countries.
The Global Polity / Exit Strategies from the Financial Crisis
Solution 1 - Diffuse inflationary expectations by clear signalling of anti-inflation measures to be taken early enough.
There are incentives for the
Solution 2 - Unwind fiscal stimulus faster than support for resolving banking problems
To diffuse fears on debt sustainability, governments face cross-road decisions on which exit roads to be entered first and which one to be entered later. There is the case for arguing that it pays more in terms of being credible toward debt consolidation if fiscal stimulus measures are terminated earlier than support for the banking sector. Fiscal risks should not be underrepresentated relative to the view that additional stimulus in some countries are still demanded. Putting priority on bank support would be consistent with “last resort” functions of governments vis- à -vis in the case of bank bailouts.
Solution 3 - Use debt-equity swaps more strongly as an exit instrument.
Rescue of banks have overproportionately relied much more on commitments of taxpayers than on private debt holders of banks. Exit strategies should include a stronger responsibility of the latter by turning bank creditors into equity holders. This would not only have a strong positive momentum on the capital adequacy ratio of banks and restore confidence into the solvency of banks. It would also facilitate the second step of selling bad assets and buying back performing assets.
The Global Environment / Managing Marine Resources
Solution 1 - Establish international systems to measure accountability
Too long fishery managers have managed fishery badly including subsidies and competitive catch limits without official sanctions. Therefore, management systems have to be improved so that good incentives for fishermen can be set in place. Additionally, those responsible for managing fisheries must be held accountable of their performance.
Solution 2 - Redirect subsidies
Certain types of subsidies encourage fishermen to continue fishing despite their fishing operation already being uneconomic. Instead, transfer payments to fishermen should be decoupled from production. The objective is to redirect the fishermen’s focus away from “productivism” towards increasing the value of catches within sustainable production limits.
Solution 3 - Reduce by-catch
Existing quota systems still place bad incentives to discard fish if the wrong species or fish that are too small had been caught. Cutting by-catch in EU waters to zero should be simply implemented by banning discard as it is already done in Norwegian waters. Globally, reducing by-catch remains the long-term objective, requiring transfers of fishing gear and knowledge to fishery management systems in the stage of development.
Solution 4 - Consider giving quotas giving in numbers instead of weight
The current quota system allows a certain amount of weight, placing the bad incentive that fishing are caught as soon as they can be caught. Transferring the quota system from total weight to total number of fishes, where appropriate and practicable, introduces the good incentive protect “baby fish” and to catch adult fish. A fishery that lets all fish spawn cannot be overfished.
The Global Environment / Establishing a Global Climate Regime
Solution 1 - Introduce an international cap-and-trade system
Today, major countries responsible for GHG emissions are still outside both binding reduction commitments and trading schemes for rights of emission. There is high demand for paving the way to an International Cap-and-Trade System which includes sanctions to be taken against freeriders. It must be supported by an adaptation fund which would trigger a steady flow of funds from industrialised to emerging markets. Such a fund (not to be confused with a donation) is indispensable to buy the agreement of emerging markets to reduction and trading commitments.
Solution 2 - Ensure a permanent access of developing countries and emerging markets to state-of-the art-emission saving technology
Many countries being responsible for high growth rates of emissions are unacceptably excluded from access to state-of-the-art emission saving and energy efficient technology. Reasons for exclusion are rooted in countries of origin and destination of technology. Measures to cope with these
Solution 3 - Establish a core group of like-minded countries taking leadership in managing and reducing GHG emissions
An International Cap-and-Trade System needs a core group of countries prepared to shoulder an overproportionate burden of funding and reductions in exchange for better future business prospects and other self-interests. Analogies to so-called “GATT-plus” experiences from multilateral trade policies suggest that leadership can bear fruits. Core group activities should be non-discriminatory, non-exclusive and thus open to new members. Homogeneity of partners is key in making such a group successful.
The Global Environment / The Energy Crisis and Climate Change
Solution 1 - Give priority to measures that can increase energy efficiency in the short run
There is a big potential for energy conservation and efficiency improvement already at hand. These could be introduced without substantial cost or discomfort: Housing insulation, more energy-efficient vehicles. Transportation is an important element of energy use. The use of gas, hydrogen, and electric vehicles could reduce CO2 emissions from that sector.
Solution 2 - Promote a price system to find energy saving solutions
We need systems that give prices on carbon and the right incentives to find energy-saving solutions. Solutions for developing countries should be inexpensive and also suitable for their situations. CCS and biofuels can be medium-term solutions. Fossil fuels will remain in the energy portfolio in the medium run. Firms make plans for the short term. Government should support R&D for long-run energy solutions.
The Global Environment / Bioenergy and Landuse in Developing Countries
Solution 1 - Raise the sustainability of land use and productivity of agricultural production in rural low-income areas
Lack of access to technology, skill deficits, and poor institutional infrastructure are serious stumbling blocs against making full use of production potentials in rural areas including bioenergy production. This offers a rich area for cooperative measures between local stakeholders, foreign donors and foreign private investors, including those from other developing economies with a good record track in exploiting rural potential.
Solution 2 - Remove trade barriers in agricultural production (including biofuel products) against developing economies
Relative to trade in manufactures, trade in agricultural products is still most heavily distorted by subsidies,
Solution 3 - Investment in bioenergy production needs a long-term focus in establishing a market network at a local base.
Current practice is still dominated by large-scale plantation owned by non-local investors. To motivate local smallholders to set up a long term market network requires institutional innovations such as cooperatives and agricultural capital markets.
Solution 4 - Concentrate on the potential of biogenic waste and residues in rural areas of developing economies
There is still considerable slack and inefficiency in the traditional use of biomass. Using biogenic waste and residues in decentralised electricity production would improve energy services in developing economies and would be instrumental to forster and develop regional village communities.
The Global Environment / Preparing for the Blue Revolution
Solution 1 - Involve people at the community level
Tackling water management problems are mostly handled at the central state level without taking the importance of these problems for the community level fully into account. Supporting the establishment and implementation of water management systems at the community level can be instrumental to enhance ownership and accountability at that level.
Solution 2 - Establishing new investment incentives for water management
Isolated investment decisions which neglect complementary actions needed for successful implementation are counterproductive and must therefore be avoided. Among others, such actions encompass the treatment of water allocation, sequencing of investment,and institutional constraints.
Solution 3 -Set up an international forum for coping with major issues of the water resource.
An international forum overseeing all diverse aspects and complexities of the water resource does not exist. Such a forum is badly needed to guide countries to a more sustainable water use and to enable them to take the cross-border nature of water resources into account. Such a forum could also be assigned to provide a global data base on water issues.
The Global Environment / Rethinking Agriculture
Solution 1 - Increase the uptake of modern technologies in poor countries
Introducing modern technologies in poor countries has been very much impeded by a multitude of constraints rooted partly in political economy markets and information and credit constraints. Foreign donors in cooperation with private and public local partners could be instrumental in developing a continuous flow of technologies and best practice application to rural areas. Extension is key as is the reform of institutional framework in these countries targeted to remove the implicit discrimination of rural activities.
Solution 2 - Reduce the waste of food and improve food distribution
There is significant waste in the entire value added chain of food production especially with respect to perishable products. Investment in storage and processing is as vital to reduce waste as the improvement of infrastructure (transport).
Solution 3 - Facilitate GMO uptake in poor countries by reducing the barriers of OECD countries against imports of GMO food products or crops
GMO products can offer significant benefits to farmers in poor countries through high yields and decreased input requirements like pesticides. However, trade policies of OECD countries prevent making use of these benefits.
Solution 4 - Decrease ambiguity in application of sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPS)
SPS act as non-tariff barriers against agricultural products from developing economies. While serving a legitimate concern of consumerprotection, they are often not commensurate and adequate when compared with the minimal health risk and the large damage incurred by developing economies and especially by rural smallholders.