The World Trade Organization (WTO) made history as the countries agreed to a new set of trade initiatives with the Nairobi Package during the Tenth Ministerial Conference in Kenya. The milestone deal includes a pledge to remove the subsidies for agricultural exports.

According to the official statement in the WTO website, the Nairobi Package is focused on issues regarding agriculture, cotton and the least developed countries. Most notable is the elimination of the farming export subsidies, which Director-General Roberto Azevêdo called "most significant outcome on agriculture" in the history of WTO.

Developed countries have agreed to abolish the subsidies immediately, save for a few products, while the developing countries are expected to follow suit by 2018. The decision to remove the subsidies is a part of the efforts to make fair trade more accessible to the poorer countries.

"WTO members - especially developing countries -- have consistently demanded action on this issue due to the enormous distorting potential of these subsidies for domestic production and trade," Azevêdo said. "Today's decision tackles the issue once and for all."

Other decisions during the Ministerial Conference include finding a permanent solution for food stockpile programmes, temporary increase of tariffs by developing countries with the Special Safeguard Mechanism, and support for the cotton industry in the least developed countries. A series of decisions also focus on benefitting the least developed countries with improved preferential rules of origin and preferential treatment for their services providers.

During the Nairobi conference, the members also acknowledged the divide in the Doha Round of negotiations. While the ministers reaffirmed their commitment to move forward with the issues, Azevêdo confirmed there are "persistent and fundamental divisions" on the future of the Doha Round talks.

According to a report from Capital FM, civil society experts were left discontented at how important Doha issues were left unresolved. Sophia Murphy, Senior Advisor at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, University of British Columbia, was vocal about her disappointment.

"The WTO's 10th Ministerial Conference limped to a close in Nairobi today with just a few thin commitments barely sufficient to merit the honorific of declaration," Murphy explained. "Both the content and the process seen at the Ministerial are a testament to the betrayal not just of the much hailed but never persuasive development components in the Doha Agenda but also the failure of the EU and US to fulfil the promises they made in signing the Uruguay Round Agreements 20 years ago."