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Aid for Trade

Aid for Trade aims to help developing countries, particularly least-developed countries, develop the trade-related skills and infrastructure that is needed to implement and benefit from WTO agreements and to expand their trade.

The success of the initiative depends on creating closer cooperation in national capitals between trade, finance and development officials of WTO member governments. This needs to be matched by close cooperation at the international and regional level among intergovernmental organisations with core responsibilities in these areas and their member governments.

EVENTS 6-7 July 2009: Second global Aid for Trade review 2009: Committee on Trade and Development sessions and other Aid for Trade Related events 28-29 May 2009: High Level Meeting on the Global Financial Crisis, Export-Led Growth and Aid for Trade: Focus on the ASEAN Experience — Siem Reap, Cambodia 7-8 May 2009 Second regional review on Aid for Trade — Montego Bay, Jamaica 4 May 2009 Honduras National Review 6-7 April 2009: COMESA-EAC-SADC North-South Corridor Project and Aid for Trade Event — Zambia 3 March 2009 National Dialogue on Aid for trade Lima, Peru September 2008: Symposium: Identifying Indicators for Monitoring Aid for Trade November 2007: Aid For Trade Global Review

Second Global Review on Aid for Trade: 6-7 July 2009  back to top

The Second Global Review will evaluate progress made since the First Review held in November 2007 and scrutinize how Aid for Trade is being operationalized on the ground. Progress in securing additional, predictable financing will be discussed and views exchanged on how aid flows can be maintained against the backdrop of the global recession. On-going projects and success stories will also be show-cased.

> Draft agenda

Role of the WTO  back to top

The role of the WTO is to:

• encourage additional flows of Aid for Trade from bilateral, regional and multilateral donors to support requests for trade-related capacity building from beneficiary countries

• support improved ways of monitoring and evaluating the initiative.

• encourage mainstreaming of trade into national development strategies by partner countries.  

The Enhanced Integrated Framework is the main mechanism through which least-developed countries access Aid for Trade.

The Standards and Trade Development Facility maintains close contacts with the Aid for Trade initiative. It complements this global scheme through projects and monitoring of aid flows at an operational, issue-specific level.

> Fact sheet on Aid for Trade
> Presentation — Aid for Trade: why, what and how?

News  back to top

Background

The Aid for Trade initiative was launched at the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference in December 2005. In February 2006 the WTO established a Task Force, with the aim of “operationalizing” Aid for Trade.

The Task Force recommended in July 2006 that Aid for Trade should focus on identifying the needs within recipient countries, responding to donors and acting as a bridge between donors and developing countries. It also recommended the establishment of a monitoring body in the WTO, which would undertake a periodic global review based on reports from a variety of stakeholders.

Working in cooperation  back to top

The WTO works in cooperation with an Advisory Group that the Director-General established in 2007 following the recommendations of the 2006 Aid-for-Trade Task Force. The main objective of the Advisory Group is to take forward the Task Force recommendations by encouraging coordination among the key players in the Aid for Trade initiative. The Advisory Group members are: the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank,  European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IMF, Inter-American Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, ITC, OECD, UNCTAD, UNDP, UNECA, UNIDO and the World Bank.

Implementation/monitoring  back to top

In 2007 the WTO's Aid for Trade initiative moved into its first stage of implementing the 2006 recommendations of the Aid for Trade Task Force.

The WTO started by establishing a system of monitoring Aid for Trade at three levels:

• global monitoring of overall Aid for Trade flows, based on work carried out by the OECD

• monitoring the commitment of individual donors to provide additional Aid for Trade

• monitoring how the needs of developing countries for additional Aid for Trade are being presented to, and met by, the international donor community, including the development banks.

A Symposium Identifying Indicators for Monitoring Aid for Trade was held on 15-16 September 2008.

Regional reviews  back to top

Working with its partner agencies, the WTO is also encouraging the holding of a limited number of national and sub-regional Aid-for-Trade reviews which will “road-test” current Aid-for-Trade plans, identify priorities, and agree on how these plans and priorities should be implemented. The aim of these reviews intially was to raise awareness of Aid-for-Trade. More recently, the Regional Reviews showcase “real-world” examples of Aid-for-Trade strategies in progress and create incentives for other countries and sub-regions to follow. The results of these regional reviews are profiled in the Global Reviews on Aid-for-Trade.

> Regional Reviews 2009
> Regional Reviews 2007

Global review  back to top

One of the recommendations of the Aid-for-Trade task force was that a Global Periodic Review be convened yearly by the Monitoring Body in the WTO. The purpose of the Global Review is to strengthen the Monitoring and Evaluation of Aid-for-Trade to provide strong incentive to both donors and recipients in advancing the Aid-for-Trade agenda.

> Global Review 2009
> Global Review 2007

Roadmap  back to top

The Director-General presented an Annotated 2009 Aid-for-Trade Roadmap at the meeting of the Committee on Trade and Development on 27 February 2009. The Roadmap, designed for the use of all stakeholders, is regularly updated to provide information on progress achieved in the different areas of the Aid-for-Trade initiative.

Official documents on Aid for Trade  back to top

Links to documents series: (WT/AFT/*) and (WT/COMTD/AFT/*)

Final reports from Regional Reviews 2009:
> Asian Development Bank Report

> Inter-American Development Bank Report

Partner institutions discuss Aid for Trade

Videos of regional case studies

> North-South corridor — Africa

> Mekong Delta — Asia

> The IIRSA Initiative
> Mesoamerican Integration Corridor