Welcome to our new monthly update. To keep you better informed in a fast-moving policy landscape, we are moving from quarterly to monthly updates, landing in your inbox the first Thursday of every month. Beyond announcements for upcoming TESS events, these updates will provide a succinct summary of recent TESS outputs and activities and highlight the ways in which TESS is bridging the gap from ideas to action.
2026 Trade and Sustainability Outlook
In this audiogram, TESS Executive Director Carolyn Deere Birkbeck emphasizes that this is not a time for pessimism. Most countries remain committed to a multilateral trading system that works. She highlights the importance of sustainability to the WTO reform agenda and previews broader international processes—from plastic pollution to climate change—where progress on trade and sustainable development can also be advanced in the year ahead.
TESS at the 14th WTO Ministerial Conference
26-29 March 2026, Yaoundé, Cameroon
As governments and stakeholders gather in Yaoundé for the 14th WTO Ministerial Conference, TESS will be on the ground connecting with colleagues across the trade and sustainability communities, learning more about work underway in the African region, and exploring opportunities to forge new and deepen existing collaborations.
Climate Change, Nature, and WTO Reform: What Is the Sustainability Opportunity?
18 March 2026, Geneva, Switzerland
This invitation-only informal roundtable will bring together a group of about 25 trade and sustainability thought leaders from a range of organizations, IGOs, and academia to explore opportunities for shared engagement and action on a forward‑looking agenda for a reconfigured international trade system.
Africa's Role in Shaping WTO Reform for a Sustainable and Inclusive Future High-Level Workshop Convening of the Remaking Trade Project
24-25 March 2026, Yaoundé, Cameroon
TESS is partnering with the Remaking Trade Project, ODI Global, The Trade Negotiations and Investment Forum (TNIF), and the International Relations Institute of Cameroon to convene this high-level, Africa-focused strategic dialogue designed to contribute constructively to WTO reform discussions with a focus on both inclusion and sustainability.
Critical Minerals as an Observatory for Evolving Forms of Trade Cooperation
This new Synergies article by Sunayana Sasmal, Research Fellow at the University of Sussex, explores how multilateral trade rules related to critical minerals partly but imperfectly accommodate some legitimate public policy concerns and why it has become necessary to experiment with new forms of trade cooperation.
Trade and CARICOM’s Just Transition: Why the Trade Agenda is Now Central to Climate-Resilient Development
This new Synergies article by Peta-Gay Facey Wilson, Assistant Attorney-General in the International Affairs Division of the Attorney-General’s Chambers of Jamaica argues that, for CARICOM, the just transition is not only about cleaner energy. It is about how the region can stay competitive, protect livelihoods, and diversify in a global economy where climate expectations are increasingly written into the rules of trade.
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Visit our channel and follow to watch recordings of our public meetings, hear commentary from experts in the trade and sustainability community, and get summaries of our research.
