There is a growing consensus that the integration of developing countries into the world trading system will require the elimination of tariff (and non-tariff) barriers, among other things. There is also a recognition that some changes in the international trading system have significant costs for some developing countries, and that normal aid programmes have been unable to deal with these.
In December 2005, the World Trade Organization pledged to encourage a new initiative on Aid for Trade in its Ministerial Declaration in Hong Kong. This explicit recognition of a WTO interest in, and responsibility for, aid has raised high expectations, but there is still little agreement on how to oprationalise the Aid for Trade initiative, what resources it could offer, for what purposes and what impact it could have.
Trade Programme research tries to address these questions through a number of different research projects.
As part of this research, we have identified reports and policy documents that are relevant to the current discussions on Aid for Trade, and created an indexed database to inform the current policy debate. Funding for the compilation of this database has come from
ILEAP.
