The World Trade Organization’s 14th Ministerial Conference MC14 opened on Thursday, 26 March 2026, in Yaoundé, Cameroon, with a strong appeal for members to show the political will needed to strengthen and reform the organization amid deep global uncertainty.
Addressing the opening session, WTO Director‑General Ngozi Okonjo‑Iweala painted a sobering picture of the challenges facing the multilateral trading system. “We cannot deny the scale of the problems confronting the world today. It is no secret that the world trading system is experiencing the worst disruptions in the past 80 years. The world order and multilateral system we used to know has irrevocably ced. We will not get it back,” she said.
Okonjo‑Iweala urged members to look forward constructively. “The organization therefore must look to the future. That means figuring out what worked well in the old order so we can keep it and build on it. That means figuring out what did not work well so we can repair it. And it also means identifying the gaps in the renewed order we are shaping so we can close them.”
Cameroon’s Minister of Trade, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, who chairs MC14, welcomed over 2,000 delegates, including more than 80 trade ministers. He called the WTO the cornerstone of ility, predictability, and transparency in international trade, stressing the need for reform.
The opening session celebrated the entry into force of the Agreement on Fisheries Subsis in September 2025. Türkiye’s Minister of Trade, Ömer Bolat, announced that his country would no longer object to incorporating the Investment Facilitation for Development Agreement IFDA into the WTO legal framework.
MC14 will focus on WTO reform, e‑commerce, agriculture, fisheries subsis, development issues for least developed countries LDCs, and possible incorporation of the IFDA. Four days of ministerial sessions are scheduled to conclude on 29 March with consideration of the Yaoundé Ministerial Statement on WTO Reform and Work Plan.
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