Commodities

A/RES/64/192View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 51d Macroeconomic policy question: commodities, published in 2010.

What other versions does this mandate have?

22 versions · 1987–2025

Newer documents in this group exist (latest: 2025).

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2025	A/RES/80/124	Commodities	4,596	—Compare
2023	A/RES/78/138	Commodities	4,462	—Compare
2022	A/RES/76/194	Commodities	3,918	—Compare
2020	A/RES/74/204	Commodities	3,441	—Compare
2018	A/RES/72/205	Commodities	3,586	—Compare

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

6 reports · 2004–2023

Year	Symbol	Title	Mandate resolution
2023	A/78/231	World commodity trends and prospects report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/76/194
2021	A/76/215	World commodity trends and prospects report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/74/204
2019	A/74/232	World commodity trends and prospects report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/72/205
2017	A/72/254	World commodity trends and prospects report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/70/191
2015	A/70/184	World commodity trends and prospects report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/68/203

What’s in this document?

28 operative paragraphs

Takes note of the note by the Secretary-General transmitting the report on world commodity trends and prospects prepared by the secretariat of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development;¹⁸

¹⁸A/64/184.

Underscores the need for further efforts to address excessive commodity price volatility, in particular by assisting producers, especially small-scale producers, in managing risk;

Emphasizes the need for efforts by the developing countries that are heavily dependent on primary commodities to continue to promote a domestic policy and an institutional environment that encourage diversification and liberalization of the trade and export sectors and enhance competitiveness;

Reaffirms that each country has primary responsibility for its own economic and social development, and recognizes the importance of an effective enabling environment at the national and international levels;

Calls for a coherent set of policy actions at national, regional and international levels to address excessive price volatility and support commodity-dependent developing countries in mitigating negative impacts, in particular by facilitating value addition and enhancing their participation in commodity and related product value chains, by supporting large-scale diversification of these economies and by encouraging the use and further development of market-oriented risk management tools;

Recognizes the potential for innovation, productivity improvements and promotion of non-traditional exports in most commodity-dependent developing countries, particularly in Africa, and calls for enhanced support by the international community as well as exchanges of experience in these areas within the framework of South-South economic cooperation;

Calls upon the international community to work closely with commodity-dependent economies to identify trade-related policies and instruments as well as investment and financial policies as key elements of the development strategies of those economies;

Underscores the importance of increased investments in infrastructure as a means of promoting agricultural development and enhancing commodity diversification and trade, and urges the international community to assist commodity-dependent developing countries;

Expresses concern over the large-scale land acquisitions by, among others, transnational corporations in developing countries that incur risk to development efforts, stresses the importance of promoting responsible international investment in agriculture, and in this regard invites the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, in cooperation with other relevant international organizations, to continue its research and analysis on this issue;

Stresses that technical assistance and capacity-building aimed at improving the commodity export competitiveness of producers is particularly important, especially in Africa, and invites the donor community to provide necessary resources for commodity-specific, financial and technical assistance, in particular for human and institutional capacity-building, as well as infrastructure development of developing countries, with a view to reducing their institutional bottlenecks and transaction costs and enhancing their commodity trade and development in accordance with national development plans;

Also stresses that the Aid for Trade Initiative should aim to help developing countries, particularly least developed countries, to build the supply-side capacity and trade-related infrastructure that they need to assist them to implement and benefit from World Trade Organization agreements and, more broadly, to expand their trade;

Calls upon the international community to take urgent measures for food security, including immediate and adequate provision of food grain in developing countries suffering from shortages, in particular least developed countries, while supporting the efforts of those countries to achieve longer-term food security and sustainable agricultural development, and notes, furthermore, that food aid should be provided in a manner that does not disrupt domestic markets and food production;

Underlines the important contribution of the commodities sector to rural development, in particular to providing rural employment and income, and to the efforts for achieving food security;

Emphasizes the importance of international measures and national strategies to improve the performance of the agricultural sector, including the functioning of markets and trading systems, to ensure a better supply-side response from producers, in particular, small farmers, in order to incentivize them to take the risks inherent in investing in increased and diversified production;

Stresses the importance of finding tools to best manage excessive price volatility, and requests the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development to carry out a study with a view to making specific recommendations on measures which could achieve more stability in commodity markets;

Calls for the conclusion of the Doha Development Round of trade negotiations of the World Trade Organization in 2010 with an ambitious, balanced and development-oriented outcome;

Reaffirms its commitment to meaningful trade liberalization and to ensure that trade plays its full part in promoting economic growth, employment and development for all;

Emphasizes that maximizing the benefits and minimizing the costs of international trade liberalization call for development-oriented and coherent policies at all levels;

Recalls the agreement to keep under regular review, by the Ministerial Conference and appropriate organs of the World Trade Organization, the impact of the results of the Uruguay Round on the least developed countries as well as on the net food-importing developing countries, with a view to fostering positive measures to enable them to achieve their development objectives, and in this regard calls for the implementation of the Marrakech Decision on Measures Concerning the Possible Negative Effects of the Reform Programme on Least Developed and Net Food-Importing Developing Countries;¹⁹

¹⁹Available from www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/35-dag_e.htm.

Welcomes the actions taken by some individual countries since the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico,3 towards the goal of full duty-free and quota-free market access for all least developed countries, and calls upon other developed and developing countries, declaring themselves in a position to do so, to take steps towards this objective;

Calls upon international financial institutions and development banks to assist commodity-dependent developing countries in managing the effects of price volatility, and in this regard invites those countries to continue to implement effective economic and fiscal measures;

Reaffirms that every State has and shall freely exercise full permanent sovereignty over all its wealth, natural resources and economic activities;

Recognizes the importance of increasing efficiency and effectiveness in the management of public and private sectors revenues in developed and developing countries derived from all commodities and commodities-related industries, including final processed goods, in support of development;

Recognizes the important contributions of the Common Fund for Commodities and other international commodities organizations, and encourages them, in cooperation with the International Trade Centre UNCTAD/WTO, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and other relevant bodies, to continue to strengthen and study ways to establish greater stability in the commodities market as well as to enhance activities in developing countries to improve access to markets and reliability of supply, enhancing diversification and addition of value, improving the competitiveness of commodities, strengthening the market chain, improving market structures, broadening the export base and ensuring the effective participation of all stakeholders;

Stresses that the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and its partners, in the spirit of inter-agency cooperation and multi-stakeholder partnerships and within their respective mandates, should continue to engage actively in collaborative research and analysis of the commodity problematique and related capacity and consensus-building activities with a view to providing regular analysis and policy advice relevant to the sustainable development of commodity-dependent developing countries, particularly low-income countries;

Underscores the urgent need for the provision of, and access to, trade finance to commodity-dependent developing countries, given the tightened access to all types of credit and noting debt sustainability;

Stresses the importance of the continuing substantive consideration of the sub-item entitled “Commodities”, and decides to include the sub-item in the provisional agenda of its sixty-sixth session, under the item entitled “Macroeconomic policy questions”;

Requests the Secretary-General, in collaboration with the secretariat of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, to submit to the General Assembly at its sixty-sixth session a report on the implementation of the present resolution with recommendations and on world commodity trends and prospects, including on the causes of the excessive commodity price volatility.

Commodities

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What other versions does this mandate have?

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

Table of contents