Countries with high environmental credentials like Bhutan should be supported to trade with an automatic recognition and prioritization of their exports as clean and green. This will be a big boost to build productive capacity and help increase climate and trade ambition.

Along with the damage posed to ecosystem and human health, climate change is already affecting what and how countries trade with one another. For instance, changing temperatures and weather patterns have an impact on crop yields, and therefore agricultural trade. Climate change can cause severe and costly disruptions to trade-related infrastructure, as sea level rises threaten seaports and rising temperatures affect and degrade railways. Tourism is another sector that is both crucial for trade and where changing weather conditions are affecting where people travel and the infrastructure that tourism relies on.

Building evidence does not only happen through research and analysis; it also comes from sharing experiences. For example, EIF support has been directed to sectors in which women are predominantly engaged, so female-owned businesses can expand and access new regional and global markets. Responses to the M&E exercise indicate a wide recognition that these efforts result in strengthening women’s economic and financial independence.

Ratnakar Adhikari (EIF) and Taffere Tesfachew (UNTBLDC) discuss how LDCs can benefit from technology on their path towards structural transformation

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

How can LDCs be supported to improve their trade performance and sustainably raise their share of trade in the global economy?

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

Manufacturing has traditionally driven economic growth in developing countries. A new book by the World Bank highlights the potential of the service sector in driving development. What are the implications of this shift for least developed countries? 

Trade is key to sustainable development and growth. This knowledge can spur action from governments and businesses, but only if the word gets out.

A United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report on findings from its Productive Capacities Index (PCI) h

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

On avoiding risks and challenges for countries striving to reduce poverty and tackle climate change

Looking ahead to the next decade of action to transform economies Thriving economies produce. What they produce could be export commodities, human enterprises, linkages to supply chains, data innovations, i.e. the whole range of things that generate profit today.

A pandemic. Development hurdles. Structural impediments. What is there for least developed countries in Africa to improve trade?

Tourism, apparel and sustainable development strategies are covered in new series of policy briefs from the Enhanced Integrated Framework

Originally published by Thomson Reute

Multinationals and governments need to recognize the trade world’s interconnectedness, and its impact

Seeing impacts in a complicated trade landscape requires learning and adapting

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

Guinea trying out south-south cooperation venture with Tunisia Trade in Guinea today centres mostly around the export of gold and bauxite, which is used to create aluminum. The country has the world’s largest deposits of the red rock, and aluminum prices are increasing.

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

Country embarking on a new tourism strategy as part of its building of trade sector When one thinks about tourism hotspots, Burundi is not the first that comes to mind. But, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t get there.

Academy training youth for a global trade

Country working toward regional and global trade goals in a post-conflict scenario. Becoming a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) isn’t automatic – it’s a process that involves commitments and consensus, questions and responses, meetings and negotiations.

As the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic kick in, hopes for better progress, at least in the short term, appear to be fading.

Breaking down the data on productive capabilities, debt and more in the world’s poorest countries

Trade practitioners discuss the country’s trade landscape, and what their daily work entails

LDCs face a variety of challenges. Apart from a few rare and often unstable and reversible economic successes, LDCs, and especially those in Africa, which represent over 80% of the group's members, have not properly benefitted from the expansion of the global economy and international trade seen in recent decades. Some have even become relatively deindustrialized, despite increased access to imported intermediate products, particularly those destined for the manufacturing sector. LDCs continue to integrate into global value chains mainly by exporting unprocessed products and intermediate products that are raw material‑intensive. However, this route is too long and too complex, and, to make matters worse, is controlled from end to end by multinational firms that are reluctant to consider a change of course.

Multiple sourcing and proximity sourcing are shaping into long-term trends as global firms hardwire resilience and agility into their supply chains.

With digital conference covering the major topics in global trade, what matters for the world’s poorest countries?

Reflections from Geneva Trade Week

In trade for development, more female trainers could make a big difference

Geneva Trade Week garnering inputs from far and wide

New paper looks at the supply chain dimension of African trade during and post-COVID

From a focus on fisheries to WTO membership, analysis of the country’s economic situation offers ways to move forward

Like the Pacific, independence from colonialism is what kickstarted the development of Quality Infrastructure in the Caribbean.

Trade ministers in the Pacific approve the region’s first strategic framework on quality infrastructure

Although LDCs are home to 13.3% of the world’s population, their share of COVID-19-related medical imports is just 1%.

Six new objectives for regional policy cooperation

Government and private sector worked together to create jobs in new ‘industry’

The collapse in trade provoked by the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the fragility of carefully constructed supply chains in the global fashion industry, and the asymmetries with which they are governed.

Originally published in OECD-Development Matters on 28 April 2020

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFRPRI) Senior Research Fellow discusses the challenges and opportunities for food security in least developed countries amidst the COVID-19 pandemic

Trade ministers are playing an essential role in the pandemic response

On Timor-Leste’s development progress, and what remains to be done

Poverty, inequality and exclusion are key factors contributing to the devastating effects of COVID-19 on all African countries.

Originally published by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) on 27 March 2020

What are international institutions pledging in the wake of the pandemic?

Originally published by Peterson Institute for International Economics on 27 March 2020

The possibility of reconfiguring manufacturing processes through new digital technologies and data provides opportunities to reboot industrial development in least developed countries.

A compendium of recent news on the global pandemic and what some of the world’s poorest countries are doing

The right trade policies would help the world combat current pandemic

The Trade Experettes founder discusses the blossoming global network of female experts from ‘all walks of trade’

Originally published in World Economic Forum Agenda on 10 February 2020

The latest version of the Global Trade Alert, which monitors state interventions that affect world commerce, explores whether developing country access to large overseas markets has changed during the current era of populism.

Mainstreaming biodiversity across economic sectors is a key issue to be discussed at the CBD COP15 in China in 2020, where the post-2020 global biodiversity framework is due to be agreed upon.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists Martin Kaufman and Papa N’Diaye discuss trade, climate change mitigation and technology in Part II of their interview.

Country is addressing its fragility through renewed efforts to stimulate economy

International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists Martin Kaufman and Papa N’Diaye discuss the impacts of the current trade tensions, and the prospects for developing economies in an unsteady global landscape.

Education key for an informed trade and policy future

In order to be effective, existing and future home country outward FDI measures need to be customised to the needs and realities of LDCs.

Countries that have already implemented trade-cost reducing reforms – for example trade facilitation, infrastructure, and data flows – will be better positioned to take advantage of any opportunities that arise from the trade war.

There is urgent need to better understand trade and climate change linkages in the context of least developed countries (LDCs).

Carefully calibrating its trade support and compliance to international standards, country is targeting more exports

Least developed countries (LDCs) confront a challenging global trade landscape, from slower long-term growth rates and rising protectionism to a weakening nexus between trade and GDP growth.

Deputy Director General in the Department of Planning and Cooperation at the Lao PDR Ministry of Industry and Commerce discusses harmonizing trade, regional integration and managing resources wisely

Despite impressive progress in the negotiations, it is still not possible to trade under the AfCFTA as the negotiations of preferential tariff concessions and rules of origin have not been completed.

Many least developed countries are vulnerable to recurrent natural disasters, which exacerbate existing challenges, disrupt long-term investments and divert resources away from development to reconstruction.

The international system governing the environment and economy is under pressure, but it is in trade where least developed countries (LDCs) may lose most from cracks in the global order.

The Enhanced Integrated Framework’s Trade for Development News is launching a new series of articles focusing on three major trade conversations happening today.

Vanuatu became a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) back in 2012, and has made immense economic progress.

With the spotlight on the Sino-US tariff war, a worrying trade policy dynamic implicating many countries has been overlooked.

From research to action, Uganda focusing on facilitation to spur economy and create jobs

Digital system set to streamline procedures for trade from LDCs to the EU

Solomon Islands putting itself on the tourism map

Increasing agricultural proceeds, processing and marketing are critical in Malawi’s development plans

With cashew prices surging and armed with solid trade policy, the country is looking to boost its farmers and processors

The EIF’s Daria Shatskova talks development in the world’s poorest countries with UNDESA’s Daniel Gay

A study published two years ago — the Diagnostic Trade Integration Study (DTIS) update — has helped to push forward the Islamic Republic of Mauritania’s reform agenda, by providing a roadmap for how the small African and Arab country can strategically diversify its exports to grow its wealth and reduce poverty

Those countries granting preferences to LDC imports often condition the benefits on the imports meeting minimum "LDC content" as set out under their rules of origin schemes

Forty-four African countries have signed on to an African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), twenty-eight of which are among the world’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs)

The WTO has issued a call for young economists to submit papers for the 2018 WTO Essay Award. The award aims to promote high-quality research on trade policy and international trade co-operation and to reinforce the relationship between the WTO and the academic community.

In scales and makeup of trade negotiations, for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) there is more than meets the eye

A new study for Tanzania — the Diagnostic Trade Integration Study (DTIS) update — highlights opportunities for developing and improving trade opportunities for Tanzanian businesses and investors.

You may not expect a graduate of an arts degree to say that a trade policy course was their favourite subject, but if you ask Zondwayo Duma from Zambia, that’s exactly what he’ll tell you

The year is 2017 and Cambodia has stepped into a role that has been out of its reach for years — the voice of the 47 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) at the Word Trade Organization.

Originally published by Thomson Reuters Foundation News

Nairobi, 19 July 2016

Representatives of the government, public and private institutions, donors and international organizations met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 23 to 24 February 2016

New UNCTAD-EIF study of the fisheries sector in The Gambia shows trade policies have to be inclusive if they are to reduce poverty