These trends were further supported by the ongoing process of liberalization of the trade regime and strong commodity prices for the primary-exporting countries.

However, a call was also made to demand four steps that developed countries should take in support of primary exports countries: (a) support the design of mechanisms to smooth price volatility; (b) structural reforms to move away from those sectors in which they are not price-competitive on the world market; (c) reduce the overburdening of developing countries with non-trade conditionalities that restrict their market access; and (d) simplify the procedures to enter the World Trade Organization.

UNCTAD should review the experience of various commodity agreements and recommend ways to obtain reasonable earnings for primary-commodity-exporting developing countries.

Calls on the UNCTAD secretariat, in cooperation with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other relevant agencies, to continue to assist LDCs in their participation in the post-Doha Work Programme through, inter alia, trade negotiations and commercial diplomacy programmes as well as through accession-related activities, with special attention to their problems and needs as primary-commodity-exporting countries;

Ghana's currency, the cedi, depreciated relative to the United States dollar in the first half of 2001 due to deteriorating terms of trade for cocoa (the country's primary export) and declining gold prices.

Deteriorating demand has led to the collapse of most primary commodity exports and African countries with very high concentrations in non-oil primary commodity exports experienced high losses of foreign exchange earnings.

Policy advice espoused under the “Washington Consensus”, including also the notion of good governance, had to be accompanied by an international setting that would guarantee financial stability, growing and predictable flows of capital, market access for products of primary export interest to African countries, provision of official development assistance in line with internationally agreed targets, and strengthening of international cooperation.