In the week of the WTO 5th Ministerial meeting in Cancun, a GDNet Special Feature highlights research on trade and development from the global south. GDNet is a global network of research and policy institutes working together to address the problems of national and regional development and the feature offers some perspectives from researchers in the global south on key elements of the social and economic impacts of the WTO on developing countries. It features resources from a range of Southern research organisations, which relate to the issues under discussion at Cancun as well as regional research on the broad topic of trade and globalization.