UN Chronicle | WTO Recommended to Be UN Specialized Agency

WTO Recommended to Be UN Specialized Agency
By Sarah Cattan for the Chronicle

Web Article

At its annual meeting in Geneva, the UN Economic and Social Council on 10 July adopted a resolution recommending to the General Assembly that the World Tourism Organization (WTO) become a specialized agency of the United Nations. The WTO would remain separate and autonomous from the world Organization, maintaining its own membership and institutions. As a UN specialized agency, the WTO would gain increased status and a voting role in inter-agency mechanisms such as the chief executives' boards. WTO Secretary-General Francesco Frangialli stressed during the Council meeting that "the benefit of this agreement would be found in increasing the significance of the World Tourism Organization and its work".

As a source of economic growth for both developed and developing countries and a critical area of social, economic and environmental importance to many countries, tourism has always been recognized by the United Nations as an important issue. It held an international conference on tourism in 1963 in Rome and four years later declared 1967 as the International Year of Tourism.

Serving as a global forum for tourism policy and issues, the WTO is the only international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. Its admission as a UN specialized agency on the same footing as other agencies such as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) would mark an important step for the future of tourism, which would become "one of the substantive areas of the Council's work and provide the subject for a future high-level segment", said Marco Balazero, Chairman of the Committee on Negotiations with Intergovernmental Agencies.

Expressing his gratitude and deep satisfaction with the Council's decision, Mr. Frangialli stated that the next step would be to conduct parallel negotiations with the General Assembly in order to make the WTO the first UN specialized agency since the UN Industrial Development Organization in 1985.

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World Tourism Organization (WTO)

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