As I was jogging today, the image of Jacques Diouf fasting at the opening of the Rome Food Summit came to mind. I could not help but think about the thousands who die of hunger every day. The fresh air of the early morning acutely brought to my mind the huge number of global challenges facing us.

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The failure to reach an agreement in Geneva has severely weakened the Doha round. What could be the consequences of a collapse of the Doha negotiation from the perspective of developing nations?

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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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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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