The joint meeting on Aid for Trade of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and the Working Party of the Trade Committee (WP/TC) took place on 10-11 September 2012 at OECD. Participants discussed Recent Aid for Trade Evaluations; Aid for Trade Flows in 2010; Regional perspectives on Aid for Trade and Managing Aid for trade and development results, among other items.

The speaker presentations can be consulted below.

Monday 10 September 2012

Item 1. Adoption of the Agenda. Item 5 on Aid-for-Trade Case Stories was postponed for a future meeting. The agenda was adopted.

Item 2. The summary record of the 23 January 2012 Joint Meeting of the DAC and WP/TC was approved.

Item 3. Recent Aid for Trade Evaluations

This agenda item allowed for an exchange of information about recent aid-for-trade evaluations and other evidence-based work aimed at improving policy making.

Presentations were given by:

• Tatsufumi Yamagata, Institute of Developing Economies, "Evaluation of Japan's Aid for Trade" (.pdf, 280KB)

• Yurendra Basnett and Isabella Massa, ODI, "Increasing the Effectiveness of Aid for Trade - The circumstance under which it works best" (pdf,176KB)

Item 4. Aid for Trade Flows in 2010

This presentation gave details of aid-for-trade flows in 2010 provided by donor countries and international financial institutions.

• "Aid for Trade Flows 2010" (pdf, 395KB), William Hynes, Development Co-operation Directorate

Item 6. Trade-related South-South Co-operation: India

This item gave an overview of how India's trade-related South-South co-operation operates. In particular, it provided an indicative analysis of what makes India's co-operation distinct and what some of its strenths and weaknesses are. It examined the relationships between India and DAC donors and what the implications are the for the current aid effectiveness agenda.

Item 7. Regional perspectives on Aid for Trade

This item set out detailed terms of reference for the work on the regional perspectives on aid for trade following the project proposal approved by the DAC and WP/TC. The objective of the study is to advance the aid-for-trade agenda at multi-country and regional levels to promote trade, sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction.

Item 8. Managing Aid for Trade and Development Results

The purpose of this work is to provide the aid-for-trade community with a comprehensive analysis and assessment of good practices in developing country-owned frameworks for measuring results of trade-related activities.

• "Towards greater value for Aid for Trade" (pdf, 339KB), Olivier Cattaneo, Sciences Po

Item 9. The Thickness of Borders: an issues paper

This item raised a number of issues about how to create the right incentive structure for reducing high trading costs and the thickness of borders that constrain local producers in developing countries from connecting to regional and global value chains.

Item 10. OECD Policy Dialogue on Aid for Trade

This item proposed the organisation of a Policy Dialogue on Aid for Trade on 16-17 January 2013 (originally proposed as 17-18 January, the dates have been modified since the joint meeting). The event aims to foster knowledge sharing on how best to support developing countries' efforts to buld their trade and productive capacities, in terms of both physical and human capital, to reap more fully the benefits from global and regional trade, and translate trade-induced growth into poverty reduction.

Item 11. Aid for Trade monitoring exercise 2013

This note presented the objectives, tools and timeline of the 2013 aid-for-trade monitoring exercise and is based onthe exchange of views that took place at the July meeting oof the WTO Committee on Trade and Development.

Item 12. Joint DAC-TC 2013-14 Programme of Work and Budget on Aid for Trade

This item sketched the strategic orientations for the 2013-14 joint DAC-WP/TC programme of work and budget on Aid for Trade.

Tuesday 11 September

Item 13. Special session on Estimating constraints to agricultural trade

This special session featured presentations by the OECD and invited experts focussing on the supply-side constraints to agricultural trade expansion in developing countries.

• "Estimating the constraints to agricultural trade of developing countries" (pdf, 318KB), Evdokia Moïsé, Silvia Sorescu, Trade and Agriculture Directorate; Novella Bottini, consultant.

• "Estimating the Constraints to Agricultural Trade of Developing Countries" (pdf, 260KB), Julien Gourdon, CEPII

• "Africa can help feed Africa" (pdf, 1.5MB), Paul Brenton, World Bank

• Film (14 mins) An Africa that can feed Africa, by Mark Hopkins