The fourth conference of francophone ministers of justice has just been held in Paris. One of the two themes was "justice and development" and notably economic law and control in French-speaking states.

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Is it fair to ask developing countries companies to follow the rules of Corporate Social Responsibility considering that our countries have developed themselves without such constraints? Would you consider CSR as a form of protectionism?

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Sorry that it has taken me a bit of a while to get back to you on the issue of Aid for Trade. I have just been able to sit down after a busy week discussing with WTO members and Heads of International Organisations on this topic.

It was never going to be easy to bring together the huge crowd that we saw in Geneva last week for our first Aid for Trade Global Review.

Bob Zoellick, from the World Bank; Dominique Strauss-Kahn, from the IMF; Kemal Dervis, from UNDP; Donald Kaberuka, from the African Development Bank; Luis Alberto Moreno, from the Inter-American Development Bank; and Rajat Nag, from the Asian Development Bank were all there. Luckily none of them missed their plane connections!

We also had with us Supachai Panitchpakdi of UNCTAD; Juan Somavia, of the ILO; Edouard Dayan, from the Universal Postal Union; Patricia Francis, from the ITC and Abdoulie Janneh, from the UNECA. Never has the WTO seen so many heads of international organizations gather at our headquarters for a conference like this! I guess it is a clear signal of the importance they - we - all attach to Aid for Trade.

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It is clear from the first interactions on this blog, that development is still above all considered from an economic point of view. Whether the discussions touch on the Millenium Goals, aid for trade, integration or the involvement of new players, the same implicit concerns prevail: production must be increased, exchanges must be intensified and, of course, the distribution of the ensuing wealth must be more equitable, since development is justified by the reduction of poverty.

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I come back from Kenya. AFD and other donors including the World Bank and EIB are financing a large-scale public geothermal investment program that will supply most of Kenya's future power generating capacity. The power generation mix that will fuel Kenya's rapidly growing economy over the next decade will be carbon-poor.

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Watch the video of the press conference held on October 21st in Washington (French and English).

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Should development agencies play a role in conflict prevention?

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For many years now, academics have debated whether regional trade agreements are 'building blocks' or 'stumbling blocks' for development and free trade. Regionalism has recently returned to the forefront of attention, as the slow progress in the Doha Round of negotiations has led many countries to increasingly pursue regional agendas.

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For those of us who work in the humanitarian world, the dawn of the twenty-first century has dealt us a difficult hand. As the expert practitioners in the game of preparing and planning for sudden, unpredictable events, we at the World Food Programme, the world's largest humanitarian agency, have become the recognised experts in emergency response.

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