Commodities

A/RES/66/190View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 17d Commodities, published in 2012.

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?

24 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;¹⁴

¹⁴A/66/207.

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

Calls upon the international community to support the efforts of commodity-dependent developing countries to address the factors that create structural barriers to international trade and impede, inter alia, diversification, including tariff and non-tariff barriers, limited access to financial services resulting in scarce resources for investing in the commodity sector, weak infrastructure, particularly as regards both the cost and availability of transportation and storage, and lack of skills in producing and marketing alternative products;

Calls for, in that regard, the successful conclusion of the Doha Development Round of trade negotiations with a development-oriented outcome that ensures, inter alia, greater market access for products from developing countries;

Also calls for a coherent set of policy actions at the 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, instruments and strategies;

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;

Underlines 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 and to invest in and support research and development of agricultural productivity;

Expresses concern over the large-scale land acquisitions in developing countries by, among others, transnational corporations, that incur risk to development efforts, stresses the importance of promoting responsible international investment in agriculture, urges the Committee on World Food Security to finalize the voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests in the context of national food security, and 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;

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 managing excessive price volatility, including, inter alia, through the development of appropriate non-trade-distorting tools at the international level and the improvement of transparency in the international market;

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 Marrakesh Decision on Measures Concerning the Possible Negative Effects of the Reform Programme on Least-Developed and Net Food-Importing Developing Countries;¹⁵

¹⁵See Legal Instruments Embodying the Results of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations, done at Marrakesh on 15 April 1994 (GATT secretariat publication, Sales No. GATT/1994-7).

Encourages developed countries that have not already done so and developing countries declaring themselves in a position to do so to take steps towards the goal of realizing timely implementation of duty-free and quota-free market access on a lasting basis for all least developed countries, consistent with the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration adopted by the World Trade Organization in 2005;¹⁶

¹⁶World Trade Organization, document WT/MIN(05)/DEC. Available from http://docsonline.wto.org.

Calls upon international financial institutions and development banks to assist developing countries, in particular commodity-dependent developing countries, in managing the effects of excessive price volatility;

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, effectiveness and transparency in the management of public and private sector revenues in developed and developing countries derived from all commodities and commodities-related industries, including final processed goods, in support of development;

Also 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, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and other relevant bodies, to continue to strengthen coordination among themselves 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;

Underlines 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-eighth 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-eighth session a report presenting an updated assessment of commodity trends and prospects, ways to strengthen coordination among international commodities organizations and other relevant international organizations and the causes of excessive commodity price volatility.

Commodities

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

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