The Enhanced Integrated Framework provided a €30,000 security to MECK-Moroni to shoulder the risk of the investment. This sort of blended finance is catalytic for aspiring business owners like Bihaicha. Blended finance is a way to use public funds to increase private investment in sustainable development.

The Enhanced Integrated Framework has remained a key conduit for both channelling and leveraging wider Aid for Trade resources to the LDCs over the past decade but also has the mandate to support LDCs expand their trade funding base.

LDCs have to deal with millions of tonnes of plastic products imported each year, including products with embedded plastics and with associated plastic packaging.

Trade is a critical part of on the ground adaptation efforts that must also be considered, specifically local trade amongst small and medium enterprises which are impacted head-on by climate emergencies. We are seeing communities already vulnerable to shocks affected not only in terms of their resources getting destroyed or depleted but also due to a lack of support systems when this happens.

The World Bank warned that recovery will be slower in low-income countries, especially small, fragile and conflict-affected states. This is due to lower vaccination rates, tighter fiscal and monetary policies, and more persistent scarring from the pandemic.

A better access to trade finance in least developed countries (LDCs) could allow businesses to have the financial tools to participate in national, regional or global trade.

Guided by its Gross National Happiness, Bhutan has considerably improved its economic, environmental, social and governance situation in the past four decades.

Originally published by OECD Development Matters blog on 30th April 2021

  Originally published by the World Economic Forum on 19 August 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the challenges Least Developed Countries (LDCs) face in accessing vital trade finance, as many have seen their local dollar liquidity shrink while foreign banks take a dimmer - and not always accurate - view of emerging market risk.

For SIDS and LDCs, tapping into the remote working revolution requires internet infrastructure

Expanding and diversifying productive capacities will better position least developed countries (LDCs) to tap the financing and e-trade opportunities that will underpin their Covid-19 recovery. This was a recurrent theme in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Least Developed Countries Report 2020, which cautioned however that the international community must first rally with resources, policy space and better international support measures.

Least developed countries (LDCs) receive only 6% of the private finance mobilized globally through blended finance, and even then funds are concentrated in a handful of LDCs while ‘last mile’ countries, sectors and businesses miss out.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted trade in the world’s least developed countries (LDCs) in a myriad of ways – from the complete collapse of tourism in some LDCs, to the rise of e-commerce opportunities in others. It’s also expected to impact donor country aid budgets for many years to come.

COVID-19 is taking a toll on developing countries and their debt

Recovery taking a different shape than expected 

Originally published on World Economic Forum on 19th January 2021 as part of the 

Originally published by the International Trade Centre (ITC) International Trade Forum Magazine on 9 December 2020

In Bangladesh, COVID-19 is impacting the female labour force more

Originally published in World Economic Forum Agenda on 6 July 2020

Ways for LDCs to adapt amid global turmoil

Supply chains are vulnerable, but there is also promise in new sectors for least developed countries

Originally published in World Economic Forum Agenda on 10 February 2020