United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
 | |
| Founded: | 1964 |
| Headquarters: | DC2-1120, United Nations New York, NY 10017 |
| Email: | info[at]unctad.org |
| Website: | UNCTAD |
| Twitter: |  @UNCTAD
|
| Key People | |
| Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General
Petko Draganov, Deputy Secretary-General | |
UNCTAD is the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. It promotes the integration of developing countries into the world economy. Further it helps shape current policy debates and thinking, with a particular focus on domestic policies and international actions enhancing development.
The secretariat works with United Nations system, regional commissions, governmental institutions, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, including trade and industry associations, research institutes and universities worldwide.[1]
UNCTAD & IT
Since January 1999 UNCTAD has been promoting e-commerce in the world not forgetting how developing countries will participate in it.[2] It organizes e-commerce workshops to be held in developing countries such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kenya, and Peru.[3] It also publishes reports on Information Technology economics. These reports can be downloaded through the official website.[4] UNCTAD has organized a domain name dispute resolution policy which can be read here.
Key Functionality
The basic responsibilities of UNCTAD are summarized in three points:
- Provision of a forum for intergovernmental deliberations, supported by discussions for building consensus of experts.
- Carrying out research, policy analysis and data collection for the debates of government representatives and experts.
- Provision of assistance in building economy of developing countries.
CSTD
CSTD is short for Commission on Science and Technology for Development. It is a body of Economic and Social Council and is governed by UNCTAD. The commission provides advice to General Assembly and Economic and Social Council for the development in the field of science and technology.[6] CSTD conducted a WSIS event in May 2009.[7]
ICT Events
UNCTAD arranges WSIS workshops and events regularly.[8][9] In the field of Information and Communication Technologies UNCTAD has hosted following events:
- Open Consultation held in October 2009 concerning financial mechanisms for meeting the challenges of ICTs for Development.
- ICT 4 All Forum Tunis+4, in November 2009.
Conferences
UNCTAD conference is held after every four years. Upcoming UNCTAD conference is expected to be from 21 to 26 April, 2012 in Doha, Qatar. The last four conferences were held in:
- Accra, Ghana from 20 to 25 April 2008.
- São Paulo, Brazil from 13 to 18 June 2004.
- Bangkok, Thailand from 12 to 19 February in 2000.
- Midrand, South Africa from 27 April to 11 May in 1996.