The World Trade Organization (WTO) has announced that its next ministerial conference will take place in Cameroon from March 26-29, 2026. This decision was reached during a meeting of WTO members on Monday.
Held every two years, these conferences bring together trade ministers from across the globe to negotiate and update trade rules.
Cameroon’s ambassador to the WTO, Salomon Eheth, expressed optimism about the event, describing it as a chance to showcase Cameroon and Africa’s potential for investment and sustainable development.
The upcoming conference comes at a challenging time for the three-decade-old global trade body. Analysts predict escalating trade tensions, especially with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump set to return to the White House in January 2025.
The WTO has struggled to achieve significant breakthroughs in recent years. Its last ministerial meeting in Abu Dhabi earlier this year yielded limited results, highlighting the difficulty of achieving consensus among its 166 members.
WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, recently reappointed for a second term, emphasized the need for a new strategy to break the ongoing negotiation stalemates. “We must focus on delivering outcomes wherever and whenever possible,” she said at a meeting in Geneva. Okonjo-Iweala urged negotiators to adopt a more dynamic approach, treating each trade issue independently to enable progress across the board.
The Cameroon conference is seen as a critical opportunity for the WTO to redefine its role in fostering global trade cooperation.
