The Doha Development Agenda (DDA) was launched in 2001 with the promise that this round of multilateral trade negotiations would
place “development” at its core. Twenty-plus years later, the Doha Round is paralysed and the development rhetoric rings hollow.
This paper re-examines the entire DDA as if development really mattered—treating development not as a diplomatic garnish but as a
measurable improvement in the capabilities, policy space, and structural transformation opportunities of low- and lower-middle-
income countries. Using a mixed-methods approach that combines computable general-equilibrium modelling, disaggregated trade-
flow analysis, and 127 semi-structured interviews with trade negotiators, firm managers, and smallholder organisations in Africa, Asia
and Latin America, we show that the modalities on agriculture, non-agricultural market access (NAMA), services, and rules have, in
aggregate, generated welfare gains that accrue overwhelmingly to the Quad (US, EU, Japan, Canada) and the large emerging
economies, while the majority of least-developed countries (LDCs) face net losses in real income, employment, and fiscal space. The
paper then reconstructs the negotiating texts under counterfactual “development-centred” principles—full flexibility for infant-industry
promotion, elimination of tariff escalation on processed commodities, binding disciplines on developed-country domestic support, and
a multilateral competition framework that disciplines buyer power in global value chains. Simulations with the MIRAGE-e model
indicate that these alternative modalities would triple the aggregate gains to LDCs and halve global inequality compared with the
actual DDA draft schedules. We conclude with governance reforms that would embed a “development impact assessment” into every
future negotiating chapter, transforming trade rounds from mercantilist bargaining into instruments for shared prosperity.