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Launching of the 2nd Survey on Monitoring the Aid for Trade Initiative
The OECD and the WTO have started preparations for the second round of the monitoring exercise whose outcomes will form the key input to the second Global Review on Aid for Trade which will take place in the WTO in spring 2009.
Please download the Donor and Partner Country Questionnaires here or go to www.oecd.org/dac/trade/aft/questionnaire.
The findings and recommendations of the first monitoring exercise were published in a joint OECD/WTO report, Aid for Trade at a Glance 2007 [Main Report | Country & Agency Chapters | CRS Profiles].
RECENT EVENTS
OECD Policy Dialogue on Aid for Trade, 3-4 November 2008. "Time to make an impact." Over 250 representatives from more than 70 countries met in Paris over two days to discuss key challenges in implementing Aid for Trade strategies and examining what works best in building trade capacity. The Secretary General of the OECD, Angel Gurría, opened the dialogue event and appealed for maintaining Aid for Trade commitments despite the current economic downturn, which in effect, demonstrates why Aid for Trade should receive a high profile in the years to come.
OECD/WTO Aid for Trade at a Glance 2007. The OECD and the WTO have worked closely together to establish a joint aid-for-trade monitoring framework. Their new global monitoring report takes stock of the trends and developments in aid-for-trade flows between 2002 and 2005. It also sets out the OECD/WTO monitoring framework and provides an overview of a survey sent to donor and partner countries to gather information about their aid-for-trade strategies, pledges and delivery. The report was presented by the OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría (speech) at the High-level segment of the Global Review of Aid for Trade on 20 November 2007.
Regional Aid for Trade Practitioners Fora in 2007. With the aim of improving the impact of the aid-for-trade monitoring exercise, the OECD, in collaboration with the WTO and the regional development banks, organised a series of Practitioners Fora on Monitoring Aid for Trade in Latin America, Asia and Africa in advance of the first Annual Global Review of Aid for Trade in the November 2007 WTO General Council meeting.
OECD Policy Dialogue with Non-Members on Aid for Trade: From Policy to Practice, 6-7 November 2006. The OECD organised a policy dialogue on Aid for Trade in Doha, Qatar which brought together a wide range of stakeholders from developing and developed countries to share experiences and information on how best to support developing countries' trade expansion and make it an engine of economic growth and poverty reduction.
BACKGROUND
Many developing countries, in particular the least developed, face supply-side constraints that severely limit their ability to benefit from the multilateral trading system. In recognition of these challenges, the 2005 Hong Kong WTO Ministerial Declaration called for the expansion and improvement of aid for trade and set in motion a process to achieve this. A WTO Task Force came up with a set of recommendations and called for strengthening of the "demand side" and the donor "response"; it also advocated closing the gap between "demand" and "response" at the country, regional and global levels, giving a monitoring role to the WTO.
In 2006, the WTO members agreed to monitor aid for trade, formally launching the WTO-led initiative. The new monitoring system is expected to create incentives – through enhanced transparency, scrutiny and dialogue – for providing more and improved aid for trade. It is about sharing information, learning from successes as well as failures, and applying the policies and approaches that we know to be effective, as embodied in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.
THE ROLE OF THE OECD AND THE DAC
The Development Assistance Committee (DAC) is helping to tackle the challenge of how poorer countries can benefit more from trade. It examines, in particular, the following three issues:
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How much aid do donors already provide in support of trade?
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How effective are these programmes?
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How can aid for trade help developing countries, particularly the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), to fully benefit from trade liberalisation and WTO agreements?
Together with the Working Party of the Trade Committee, DAC is working to make aid for trade more effective by strengthening the integration of trade in development programmes, developing impartial and reliable tools to assess aid-for-trade programmes, and fostering dialogue and knowledge-sharing among stakeholders.
www.oecd.org/dac/trade/aft
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