The Role of International and National Agencies in Trade–related Capacity Building

With increased recognition that trade can bring significant benefits to developing countries, and the launch of a new trade round, bilateral and multilateral agencies have begun to mobilise resources for trade–related capacity building (TRCB). The biggest challenge is to ensure that available resources are effectively utilised to deliver tangible benefits to developing countries. This paper argues that the effective delivery of TRCB relates specifically to two areas: in–country to help formulate appropriate trade positions as well as to place trade reform in the context of the country's overall development strategy that will promote a supply response and facilitate pro–poor growth; and secondly within the global rule making process to ensure that implementation of WTO rules and efforts to negotiate and implement future disciplines makes sense from a development perspective, and that TRCB is considered in the context of other competing development needs. The paper elaborates an issues based approach to bring the main providers to TRCB and bilateral donors together to support recipient countries to include a trade agenda in their overall development strategy and to facilitate developing country participation and implementation of WTO agreements that could be formulated within the global trade rules.