RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
24 September 2008 
 (08-4492) 
Committee on Trade and Development 
Seventh Session on Aid for Trade  
 
 
 
NOTE ON THE MEETING OF 11 JULY 2008 
 
Chairman:  H.E. Mr. Shree B.C. Servansing (Mauritius) 
 
 
A. ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA ........................................................................................................1  
B. UPDATES ON STATE -OF-PLAY IN IMPLEMENTATION OF 2008  AID-FOR-TRADE 
ROADMAP ............................................................................................................................... .....1 
1. Presentations by Members of the Aid-for-Trade Advisory Group ......................................1  
2. Preparations for the Expert Symposium on Evaluation:  Identifying Indicators 
for Monitoring Aid for Trade ................................................................................................22  
C. REPORTS ON THE OUTCOMES OF RECENT STANDARDS AND TRADE DEVELOPMENT 
FACILITY (STDF)  EVENTS HELD IN CAMBODIA , UGANDA , AND GUATEMALA ........................23  
D. OTHER BUSINESS ......................................................................................................................23  
 
 
A. ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA  
1. The draft agenda for the meeting as contai ned in Airgram WTO/AIR/3209 of 16 June 2008 
was adopted . 
2. The Chairman  said that, as indicated in the airgram, the aim of the meeting was to give 
Regional Development Banks and ot her relevant institutions an oppor tunity to provide updates on 
their state-of-play in the implementation of the Director-General's 2008 Aid- for-Trade Roadmap that 
had been presented to the Committe e at its meeting in February 2008.  He added that the Roadmap 
had recently been circulated as an official document in WT/COMTD/AFT/W/6.   
3. He said that an important part of the Aid-fo r-Trade (AfT) work prog ramme between now and 
the next Global Review scheduled in May/June 2 009, was the national and s ub-regional reviews that 
the Regional Development Banks (RDBs) and Re gional Economic Commissions (RECs) would be 
holding in their regions.  He recalled that the aim of the reviews was to advance the implementation of concrete national and sub-regiona l strategies and to show how aid-for-trade strategies were 
progressing.  Some of the details of the plans alre ady in place had been provided in the annotated 
update of the Roadmap distributed in the meeti ng room which would be revised after the present 
meeting to bring information completely up-to-date. 
B. U
PDATES ON STATE -OF-PLAY IN IMPLEMENTATION OF 2008  AID-FOR-TRADE ROADMAP  
1. Presentations by Members of the Aid-for-Trade Advisory Group 
4. The representative of the African Development Bank  (AfDB), also in cooperation with 
UNECA, informed delegations about what was ongoing from their side and what they had done until WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
Page 2  
 
  now on AfT.  First, the AfDB and the UNECA wi shed to reaffirm their engagement on the AfT 
initiative and also their commitment to go ahead with the implementation stage.  After the initial work 
that had been done on aid for trade, he was convin ced that trade and AfT initiatives should go ahead.  
Secondly, he informed delegations that it was the AfDB 's intention to work together with key partners 
and actors including donors, the private sector, and the RECs.  The AfT exercise would be owned by 
the RECs but the AfDB would have a key role in  assisting them to implement the initiative.  The 
AfDB was already cooperating very closely w ith UNECA and the WTO, and a Working Group had 
been established, the first meeting of which had taken place the previous month to set up an action plan of work.  A concept note had been discussed  and decisions such as the establishment of the 
Africa AfT Network, including an internet website, had been taken.  The African AfT network would 
comprise two tiers, one at the Pan-African – global – level which would comprise the African Union, 
the NEPAD Secretariat, RECs, and African Mini stries of Finance and Trade.  Where possible 
representatives from industry would be included in the me mbership of the network, and, of course, the 
African Development Bank, UNECA, WTO, and the private sector and donors would also be included.  There would also be a sub-regional netw ork comprising the four regions in Africa, i.e., 
West Africa, East and Southern Africa, Central Africa, and North Africa.  The AfDB had also been 
working on projects for 2008 and 2009 and in this resp ect four bankable projects in transport and two 
in energy had been identified.  That was just a st arting point and the AfDB w ould continue to work on 
other projects.  Emphasis would be put on ownership by the RECs and member countries.  The projects – which should increase trade – would tackle  priority areas such as infrastructure, trade 
facilitation and standards, and san itary and phytosanitary problems.  The projects would most 
probably be integrated ones with hard and soft in frastructure, covering also trade regulatory aspects 
and trade facilitation.  The next step for the AfDB would be to take advantage of sub-regional events 
to be held in Africa in order to hold back-to-back  meetings on the AfT initiative – at least two events 
were planned by May 2009.  An African AfT Know ledge Network portal woul d be created and linked 
to the OECD AfT knowledge portal and WTO AfT webs ite.  The AfDB would also provide input for 
the 15-16 September Symposium on Monitoring Aid for Trade. 
5. The representative of the Inter-American Development Bank
 (IaDB) presented information 
and preliminary ideas on how to advance the implementation of AfT in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region, including by providing an  update on the national an d sub-regional reviews 
which would likely take place in 2008/2009 and the proposed plan it was developing in close 
coordination with countries in the LAC region.  The presentation focused on three main issues:  (i) 
how IaDB saw trade and integration challenges in the Latin American and Caribbean region as they 
had emerged during the 2007 regional and global reviews;   (ii) a brief account of the results from the 
2007 exercise and the draft work plan for 2008/2009, and (iii) what were the challenges ahead, and 
more particularly, how to ensure that AfT was implemented effectively. 
6. Regarding the first point several challenges that had emerged from the 2007 Regional 
Review.  The first one was that, even though trade had a prominent place in the public debate and in 
the policy agenda of many Latin American countr ies, it was not sufficiently mainstreamed into 
national development agendas.  In the case of Latin America and the Caribbean, trade openness was 
still below levels prevalent in other regions of  the world and exports were still not very well 
diversified.  A third and very clear issue that had emerged from the first Regional Review on AfT was 
that trade liberalization was not systematically accompanied by complementary domestic policies.  A 
comprehensive strategy aimed at making trade work  for development was therefore needed.  Also an 
issue was the fact that countries f aced the challenge of adapting to the complexity of a modern trade 
agenda.  Addressing the behind-the-border issues required significant changes to long-standing 
institutional, legal and administrative practices as well as improved and more sophisticated inter-
institutional coordination.  In many of the countries of the region, there was al so the need to increase 
ownership of trade reforms and to sustain support fo r trade liberalization.  The supply-side capacity 
and adjustment issues which were the core of th e AfT initiative were therefore important.  Another 
challenge was what kind of trade-related assistance w as needed and how it should be delivered.  In the 
case of the LAC countries, many were middle-inco me countries having limited financial resources to  WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
 Page 3 
 
 
  manage the trade agenda, particularly when that ag enda expanded.  There was  also limited access to 
grants, financing or other con cessional resources and initiatives, as well as limited lending for 
regional programmes. 
7. These were the challenges that had emerged from the Regional Review held in Peru in 
September 2007 and they had also been presented at the first AfT Global Review held in Geneva in 
November 2007.  Latin American and Caribbean fina nce and trade ministers and senior officials who 
had participated at the reviews had expressed c oncern about the existing gap between demand and 
supply and the need to address those gaps as far as the AfT initiative was concerned.  Following an 
extensive consultation process with LAC countries, including with private sector representatives, four 
areas of concern had emerged in re lation to the delivery modalities of AfT in the region.  First, there 
was a consensus that AfT was a priority in the LAC development agendas.  Second, private sector 
development was a key strategic goal of the AfT in itiative given that many of these economies were 
generally small and could not conceive the development of a vi brant private sector without facilitating 
their integration into the global economy.  Third, there was a need to tap into economies of scale and 
regional synergies.  AfT priorities were often re gional and there was a need to find new ways to 
finance and implement projects regionally.  This re gional dimension had been very well discussed and 
presented by many countries during the meeting the pr evious year.  Fourth, there was a consensus in 
the region that AfT should be delivered accordin g to the principles of the Paris Declaration on 
Development Effectiveness, including the coordi nation among donors and international agencies and 
participation of emerging donors' interest in sector-based foundations. 
8. There was now clearly a need to move to the next stage which was how to implement aid for 
trade and how to address all the challenges to a rrive at concrete results.  The WTO 2008 Aid-for-
Trade Roadmap had set three objectives:  (i) incr eased developing-country ownership;  (ii) focus 
implementation on country, regional and sector prior ities;  and (iii) performance indicators and self 
evaluations.  In order to achieve such objectiv es, the Roadmap had established a strategy which 
included actions on five fronts:  global monitoring,  national and sub-regional reviews, AfT networks, 
global review, and the role of the Committee on Tr ade and Development.  Based on that, and in 
consultation with countries, the IaDB had been pr eparing a work plan for implementing AfT in the 
Latin American region.  The proposed work plan aimed at providing an operational framework for the 
implementation of the AfT initiative in the region,  providing donors an opportunity to address the 
existing gaps with increased development eff ectiveness, and recipient countries an operational 
instrument that met their expectations while also  taking into account their priorities in terms of 
regional and thematic focus and de livery modalities.  The proposed work plan was based on four main 
guidelines.  First was focus and selectivity.  The sub-regional and regional action plans that could 
emerge from the exercise would be focused, could address specific sectors and/or themes, and would be technical and results oriented.  There should be a focus on demand-driven projects in a selective 
number of priority areas where possible encouraging a ppropriate synergies at a regional level.  There 
must also be broader participation from all releva nt stakeholders, including governments and private-
sector representatives from the region and from each country, as well as representatives from regional 
organizations and donors based in the respective co untries or sub-regions.  A selected series of sub-
regional events in Latin America and the Caribbean were therefore envisaged to support countries of 
the region in advancing the implementation of the na tional or sub-regional strategies.  One example of 
a sub-regional event was the recent technical works hop that had been organized jointly with the STDF 
and WTO in Central America.  The technical wo rkshop had addressed SPS needs and there had been 
a clear consensus among countries in Central America that SPS was a passport to trade and was vital to overcome the related obstacles that were pr eventing countries from benefiting from new market 
opportunities.  The main outcome of the workshop w as a validated sub-regional plan of action and 
strategy on SPS, including timetables and instituti onal mandates to be presented at a second regional 
AfT review that would take place in early 2009.  Some Caribbean countries had stated very clearly 
that one of their priorities was to come up with a strategy of how to implement recently-negotiated 
key trade agreements at a regional level.  So, a nother example of a sub-regional event would be to 
support Caribbean countries in the development of su ch a regional strategy and in how to implement WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
Page 4  
 
  the trade agreements.  As a compliment to the sub -regional events, IaDB had also been thinking about 
the need to have a series of national AfT events the aim of which would be to provide or develop 
National Action Plans to prepare for a successful AfT plan and strategy.  The LAC countries that the 
IaDB had consulted with so far to get support to develop the national AfT strategy as part of the 
implementation roadmap had expressed a high level of in terest in that type of exercise.  All the sub-
regional and national events, workshops and exer cises should be considered as preparatory work 
towards a second regional AfT review that would be he ld in the first quarter of 2009 prior to the next 
Global Review which would then serve as a basis to discuss the results of the sub-regional events and 
National Action Plans on AfT and to mobilize resources to address them.  The final element of the proposed work plan was to carry on with the mandate that had emerged from the first Regional 
Review to develop a regional AfT network in Latin  America and the Caribbean.  In that respect, the 
IaDB was working closely with relevant countries and regional and global organizations such as the 
OECD to try to develop and put in place the regiona l network as part of the implementation plan for 
2008. 
9. On the question of how to ensure AfT impl ementation and effectiveness, one of the key 
challenges would be how to link the programming of AfT to results.  IaDB was of the view that 
production of concrete results, whic h could in turn lead to incentiv es for others to follow and which 
could provide momentum for the AfT initiative to promote ownership and accountability, would 
require a high level of involvement and commitment from all relevant stakeholders.  That was why, in 
developing its work plan, the IaDB was worki ng primarily as a facilitator but also in close 
coordination with all relevant stakeholders at a national, regional and global level.  Although 
individual operations or projects were very importa nt, the IaDB considered that these should be set 
within a framework of reforms of broader strategi es and should be improved to support, for example, 
a country's reform programme with specific trigge rs for moving from one project or one stage to 
another.  In the context of Latin America and th e Caribbean, for example, given that many countries 
in the region were middle-income countries and had limited access to grants and resources, one of the 
challenges was the need to have a combination and fl exibility of instruments.  The right incentives to 
implement reforms by combining inter alia  grants and loans, national and regional strategies, and 
public- and private-type operations  had therefore to be provided. 
10. Turning to measuring AfT effectiveness, alt hough the IaDB considered that outcomes and 
progress of trade-related assistance should be measur ed this would prove di fficult in some cases, 
particularly where institutional strengthening, capacity building, or multi-sector assistance was 
concerned where there was sometimes no obvious way to measure outcomes.  There was also a need 
to establish baseline indicators, which was one of  the objectives of the AfT Roadmap, to establish 
attribution, for example, where many donors were i nvolved in a particular project, region, or country, 
and where other variables interacted and affected  outcome, and, of course, to build incentives for 
donor coordination which was an essential element in  the development of well designed results and 
base frameworks.  In order to successively address these challenges everyone had a role to play and 
the IaDB was pleased to be able to assist countries in the LAC region to  comply and turn into a reality 
the implementation of the AfT initiative. 
11. The representative of the Asian Development Bank
 (AsDB) presented an update on what the 
AsDB was doing in the Asia Pacific region includin g in terms of implementation and progress since 
the 2007 Global Review, of needs assessments being carried out at the sub-regional level and what 
had come out of those assessments in terms of project s, pipelines and ideas, and future plans.  He said 
that as well as India and China there were also 22 LDCs and small states in the Asia Pacific region which faced a real risk of marginalization due to  a number of factors, including the terms of trade 
shocks and weak supply-side capacities.  In that  regard the AsDB was strongly committed in taking 
forward the AfT initiative in the Asia Pacific a nd, at the Global Review in 2007, had produced a 
document providing details of the agenda that its Managing Director Ge neral and President had 
agreed on to carry forward working with its partners.    WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
 Page 5 
 
 
  12. Since the 2007 Global AfT Review, the AsDB had ratcheted up its lending in the Asia Pacific 
region – particularly for AfT-related activities – wh ich was now at record levels compared with the 
past.  He then gave examples of some of the projects that the AsDB Executive Board had approved 
since the Global Review.  Apart from lending, th e Bank was also providing grant-based assistance 
which had been significantly ratcheted up as well.  An example of this was the technical assistance 
grant of USD1.7 million for the Greater Mekong Su b-region (GMS) which had come largely from the 
Banks own funds, but also from a network of ar ound 30-odd donor trust funds run by the Bank. 
13. In order to have the infrastructure and activiti es fall directly under the AfT agenda, the AsDB 
had also used its ongoing consultation mechanis ms – the great Mekong sub-region initiative;  the 
Central Asia Regional Economic Operation Progr amme;  and the SASEC Programme which dealt 
with South Asia – and had identifie d gaps and future pipelines.  Th e AsDB had also concluded that 
operational activity needed to be scaled up in many areas and assistance from recipients, donors, and 
IGOs was needed to be able do this in the Asia Paci fic.  As a mechanism to take forward in a coherent 
manner the diverse set of activities being carried out  by donors, recipients, and other organizations, 
the AsDB would be setting up a regional technical gr oup to synthesize what was being done and what 
was being planned in the Asia Pacific region.  The regional technical group would be a dialogue 
among key stakeholders, but would also hopefully co me up with an idea of how to operationalize the 
activities. 
14. The AsDB had also commissioned an internal report to look at its own programme to see how 
it could be better tailored to the AfT agenda a nd initiatives.  Simultaneously, the Bank had been 
thinking about how it could meet the challenge of  its rapidly evolving developing member countries 
in the region, bearing in mind that some of them  were middle-income countries.  It had therefore 
looked 12 years ahead and had come up with a majo r long-term strategic fra mework and document – 
Strategy 2020.  The idea was to align the internal report and Strategy 2020 so that the AsDB would be 
well placed to serve its developing member count ries, and others, over the next decade or so.  
15. Realizing that capacity was very important, th e AsDB had increased its support for regional 
trade capacity building directly.  The AsDB Pr esident continued to advocate the case for more 
resources in the Asia Pacific region and had conti nued to highlight the needs of the marginalized 
countries that were at risk of losing ground in tr ade led development which was a major characteristic 
of the success of the Asia Pacific.   
16. In the context of dissemination of informati on, the Bank had created a new website not only 
as a mechanism to provide updates of what it was doing in the region, but also, most importantly, as a 
way of communicating and linking up stakeholders in the AfT initiative.  The website, which had just 
been launched, would be a communication tool fo r the Bank itself but, more importantly, would be 
linked up with the OECD, the WTO and other partne rs to take forward the initiatives in the Asia 
Pacific, and would be a portal in the region.  He  added that the Manila AfT Conference Proceedings 
had also just been published. 
17. Turning to sub-regional cooperation programmes, he said that for 20 years the AsDB had had 
a very strong structure of sub-regional programme s which it worked in a multi-donor, multi-recipient 
context with a number of stakeholders.  These we re ongoing consultation processes through which, 
during the past year, the Bank had attempted to bri ng together the knowledge it had in terms of needs, 
gaps, and future directions.  Some of the project s he presented which were in the pipeline were ones 
that the Bank could not finance itself.  The Bank was therefore looking to work with colleagues in 
other agencies and regions, and in global institutions , to try to take forward the implementation of 
global AfT.  Each sub-region was very different with  regard to gaps, needs and projects.  In Central 
Asia, for example, there were landlocked econom ies that faced high tr ade costs because of 
geographical location and poor policies.  The AsDB was therefore trying to work at the country and regional level and was putting a lot of emphasis on regionalizing activities.  Regional projects were 
quite hard to plan because of the free-rider problem ;  a classic issue, for instance, was that no one WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
Page 6  
 
  country would borrow for a regional project because it saw the other as a free-rider.  As a solution to 
this issue, the AsDB were trying to work in an  innovative manner to connect  up regional projects with 
national ones and were also trying to get regional institutions involved.  One example was the very 
innovative project the Bank had carried out in the Pacific which dealt with air transport safety where 
the critical issue was the numerous small islands that needed to connect up and improve their 
transport facilities. He said that he  would be happy to provide on requ est more details of the projects, 
including the analytical work involved.  South Asia was also a very important region both in terms of numbers of people as well as levels of poverty.  The Bank was therefore trying to replicate the success 
of the GMS project through sub-regional initiatives in South Asia and to connect up East Asia and 
South Asia through a number of transport and ot her led initiatives.  In the Pacific, the AsDB 
recognized that a very different set of products an d items had to be looked at.  The examples he 
presented demonstrated the complexity of the issue in the Asia Pacific where there were four sub-
regions each with a different set of needs and de mands and each requiring different projects.  The 
AsDB was using all its expertise to try to get that picture together.  The big challenge was taking this 
forward.  The Bank wanted to harness the knowledge and information it had in the region.  At the 
2007 Global Review the AsDB committed to the AfT ag enda three items that would be deliverable for 
the 2
nd Global Review.  First, it woul d form a regional technical group.   Second, it would put forward 
a proposal for the region which would be a strategi c and practical document.  And, third, it would 
carry out a study of best practices which would no t only be of interest for the second phase of Asia, 
but also of interest to other regions in learning about good practices available globally. 
18. The regional technical group (RTG) would bring together the key stakeholders involved in 
AfT in the region and, essentially, the Bank wanted to  synthesize a lot of what was being done.  An 
interesting interaction with some key stakeholders had taken place that morning, and one of the things 
that had come out very strongly was how did this all join up with what everyone else was doing.  In the regional technical group the idea would be to sh are plans and aspirations and try to join up the 
information as well as look at what worked and wh at didn't and try to put information together in a 
synthetic manner to begin operationalizing at a region al level.  What was happening in Geneva would 
be conveyed in a coherent manner to the relevant stak eholders in the region.  In relation to the Bank's 
commitment on ownership, a developing member count ry would be invited to chair the RTG process.  
The Bank would have a secretariat function in th e RTG and would work very closely with its 
developing member countries.  The RTG would come up with a proposal for consideration by all the 
Bank's members and stakeholders to try to take fo rward the ambitious initiative in the Asia Pacific 
region.  The proposal, which he stressed was not a plan or a report but a set of ideas, would be based 
on the Paris Principles and would be put forward in a very clear and simple manner. 
19. In parallel to all of this, the Bank would also lead a small but important study, which would 
start its work next year, to really look at AfT assistance in the Asia Pacific, to try to learn lessons so that when the implementation of an initiative, pl an or proposal was being considered, it knew what 
worked and what didn't.  The fact that some countri es in Asia had done well might be of great interest 
to other regions that were interested in taki ng forward trade-led development in the future. 
20. In terms of timing, it was planned for the re gional technical group to meet at the end of 
September or early October to get consensus on where that process was going to then be able to work 
for a couple of months to try to prepare the propo sal document.  The RTG would meet again to agree 
on the way forward.  2009 would see the start of a consultative process through stakeholder 
interaction, etc., in regional, national or other mee tings and, finally, the results of all initiatives would 
come together at the Global Review meeting that same year. 
21. The AsDB stressed that it wanted to work with  all its stakeholders – both Geneva and capital-
based, and at the regional level – to implement its focused and clear agenda in order to ensure a 
meaningful outcome for the Asia Pacific.  It also intended to coordinate acro ss regions with partners 
such as the IaDB, and others, to try to  learn lessons from that process.  WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
 Page 7 
 
 
  22. The Chairman  then turned to another important element of the Aid-for-Trade Roadmap – 
strengthening the global monitoring of aid for trade – and invited members of the Advisory Group who had contributions to ma ke to take the floor.   
23. The representative of the OECD
 informed the Committee of its efforts to improve the 
monitoring framework.  He said an informal meetin g had been held the previous day with OECD 
members to discuss improvements to the donor ques tionnaire where a new draft of the questionnaire 
had been presented to OECD members.  A signi ficant amount of comments had been received which 
would be incorporated into a revised document during the Summer.  A revised questionnaire would 
then be presented to OECD members again in Sept ember.  Improvements were being made to the 
questionnaire mainly in order to elicit more comp arable data and to make it more focused on 
implementation of the strategies of AfT.  There remained two important outstanding issues in respect 
of the donor questionnaire.  One concerned non-OE CD donors.  He recalled that, at the 2007 Global 
Review, although a number of donors had answered th e questionnaire some significant donors, such 
as China, had not answered.  The idea had therefore been to consult with donors in order to formulate 
and arrive at a different type of questionnaire that they would find benefits of answering.  The other 
issue was the regional dimension.  At the meeti ng the previous day, OECD members had discussed 
how the regional dimension could be better tackle d and had agreed to increase the focus of the 
questionnaires on that and maybe do some piloting ex ercises with the regiona l development banks and 
with the regional economic commissions.   
24. The second element of the OECD's work which had taken much more time and energy during 
the past year had been to improve recipient count ries' engagement in the monitoring framework.  As 
delegations would have noticed, mu ch fewer responses to the questionna ires that were distributed in 
2007 had been received from partner countries than  from donors.  For the OECD, the questionnaire 
was a way of engaging in the monitoring framework  and very often it spoke about the questionnaire 
as being a hand out for that engagement process, but too much focus should not be put on the 
questionnaire itself.  Over the past few months, the OECD had had two very useful meetings to 
consult with partner countries on how to improve the questionnaires, including a recent brainstorming 
session with the UNDP.  The meetings proved to be extremely useful events and one of the key 
lessons learnt was about communication.  The 2007  questionnaire process had been done too fast with 
too little information and probably ve ry often it had been addressed to the wrong people.  The OECD 
had therefore made a big effort to target much better to whom the questionnaire was addressed, to 
explain much better what was its purpose, what w as the context of the questionnaire and why it was 
important to fill it in, what were the benefits of filling it in, and to ask much  simpler questions which 
were more relevant to the partner countries' trade development strategies.  A nother very clear message 
that had emerged – and which for the OECD was very  interesting – was to link much more with the 
national country led process which was not necessarily just about trade.  In some cases there was 
focus on trade development, but very often they enco mpassed the whole of the aid strategy.  This was 
quite important because it reflected the regional obj ectives of the monitoring as well as the AfT Task 
Force recommendation of having national AfT co mmittees using the monitoring as a link to the 
Global Review.  The OECD considered it important to  take again this original message and to make 
sure that that link was not lost.  The third importa nt message was in terms of the simplicity and the 
burden of the questionnaire.  Obviously  a huge effort had to be made in this respect so as not to add to 
an already very heavy load that  most national governments had. 
25. As for the next steps regarding the recipient questionnaire, the OECD would work during the 
Summer to come up with a new document and in September would consult as widely as possible on 
the new document.  The OECD hoped it could con tinue working with AITIC and arrange another 
workshop but would also appreciate using the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD) as a 
forum to consult much more widely with devel oping countries so as to take on board as much as 
possible their comments in order to come up with some thing that would be of be nefit and feasible as a 
tool to engage in the Global Review.   WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
Page 8  
 
  26. How the OECD could work in partnership w ith other organizations which had country 
presence was extremely important and the present meeti ng had been very useful in that respect.  The 
OECD looked forward to working with the Wo rld Bank, UNDP, and regional development banks 
with regard to the purpose of the monitoring exer cise but also with regard  to helping and working 
together to provide technical support in-country to  complete the questionnaire and engage in the 
monitoring process if needed. 
27. The representative of the OECD
 presented information on the knowledge network on AfT 
which had emerged from the 2007 Global Review as be ing a useful tool to increase awareness of AfT 
to share best practices among AfT practitioners and to create a community.  She said that the IaDB 
and AsDB had mentioned that they had set up we bsites on AfT and had linked them to the OECD 
knowledge network.  In fact there was no OECD knowledge network on AfT, but rather an OECD 
website on the monitoring of AfT.  What had been  done regarding work on the knowledge network on 
AfT was that information that was available on th e Internet that could be classified as being AfT 
related had been looked at.  The information w as increasing and new websites were being created.  
However, there were very few specific websites de dicated to AfT apart from those of the WTO, the 
regional development banks, part of the World Ba nk, and AITIC.  The OECD had therefore asked 
stakeholders what they thought about the websit es and information on AfT available on the Web, 
about the purpose, the content, the ownership and the cost.  The third question that had been addressed was whether there was a need to creat e such an AfT knowledge network containing 
information and creating a functionality for co mmunication.  Not surprisingly, the general 
stakeholders felt there was a need for such an Af T network.  The next question was how much would 
this cost.  The more sophisticated the AfT know ledge network was and the more interactive you 
wanted to make it, the more expensive it became.   In order to have a really fully active AfT 
knowledge network which would be updated, staff and resources were  required. Interest had been 
shown for a cheaper alternative, namely a chap ter on the development gateway – or ALDIS or 
EUROFIC –  which was an existi ng website on development issues.  The conclusion was that there 
was interest from the websites that already had development content – the development gateway, 
EUROFIC, ALDIS – in setting up an AfT chapter on th eir broader website but there was also interest 
from some donors to provide financing to set up the more sophisticated dedicated AfT knowledge network.  The question was how much money w ould these donors be willing to spend and who would 
be willing to host such a website.  Because of it s very limited membership, the OECD would not be 
interested in hosting the website.  It should be host ed by an agency with a global membership which 
had experience in those kinds of issues.  The st udy findings would be discussed with OECD members 
in September. 
28. The second issue the representative wished to  report on was the work the OECD was 
undertaking on evaluating AfT.  In this regard, th e OECD was looking at whether or not there was a 
need to develop specific guidance to evaluate  AfT programmes and projects.  A three-pronged 
approach had been taken.  First, existing evalua tions were being mapped a nd here the OECD had a 
huge data base of eight programmes and evaluators of  those programmes.  Taking that AfT consisted 
of a large part of the total ODA and that it had been  done for some time there should be evaluations of 
those programmes.  What did those programmes show  and what was the current practice in evaluating 
them.  Second, the OECD was summarizing the results to see what conclusions could be drawn or whether the conclusions should be that the knowledge in this area was too poor.  There were a lot of 
projects, for instance for infrastructure, but the tr ade impact of infrastructure had never been looked 
at.  There was also a lot of productive capacity building but, again, the impact of trade capacity 
building had never been looked at.  The OECD w ould then explore whether there was a need to 
design a specific guidance on evaluating AfT.  In ge neral, when a number of programmes were being 
evaluated, one tried to make the programmes a nd what was going to be evaluated as specific as 
possible in order to be able to draw conclusions.  The traditional approach of developing evaluating 
guidance on AfT would be to split up AfT in its parts.   What the OECD was trying to do was to take 
the more innovative approach – which had been take n in the AfT initiative – by connecting the dots to 
say that a large number of programmes not necessar ily primarily focused on building trade capacity  WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
 Page 9 
 
 
  had trade outcomes.  So the OECD was seeing whethe r a much more holistic approach that was being 
taken in the AfT initiative could be applied also to evaluate AfT.  The study had only just started and 
the OECD hoped to have some preliminary results in  September.  The final result would probably be 
available at the end of 2008 when the OECD would be happy to discuss the issue again. 
29. The representative of the World Bank  said that at the 2007 Global Review President Zoellick 
had announced a seven-point programme that th e World Bank would undertake to promote trade-
related activities.  The first part of that progra mme was to devote more resources to developing 
programmes of trade competitive analysis, includi ng analytical work, policy advice, technical 
assistance and investment lending.  Since the Globa l Review, the Bank  had expanded its efforts and 
had made more staff available to undertake the pr ogramme.  Similarly, President Zoellick had given 
emphasis to infrastructure and the importance of in frastructure to expand programmes in low-income 
countries and to cut the cost of borrowing for middle-income countries.  Subsequent to his announcement, President Zoellick had managed to wo rk it through a Board so that the margin on 
IBRD – the commercial window of the World Bank – had actually been reduced to middle-income 
countries;  low income-countries already had access to concessional finance.  He reported that, as 
delegations were probably aware, from the mid 1990s  lending to infrastructure for many of the 
development communities had actually tapered off and had stabilized since donors had turned their attention to other matters, including, for example,  governance and health.  Infrastructure had therefore 
lagged behind.  The import of President Zoellick's announcement at the Global Review was that it 
was time to reverse this trend because infrastructur e, electricity and power, and transportation ports 
were important to expanding trade.  The third element of the seven-point programme was trade 
finance and here the World Bank, in conjunction w ith the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – 
the private sector window of the World Bank – had established a global trade finance programme 
which was a re-insurance programme of a revolving  fund to basically prov ide insurance for trade 
finance through banks.  Some 87 banks in 48 deve loping countries were participating in that 
programme and so far some USD770 million of guar antees had been put together during the fiscal 
year 2007.  That figure was likely to increase in the fiscal year 2008 to around USD1.8 billion.  This 
was not a programme for just middle-income count ries.  It was a programme that had benefited 
Burundi, Egypt, Malawi, Paraguay, Tajikistan, and a number of different countries where small banks 
had been able to use the IFC's guaranteed facility to make sure they could provide finance and a 
system of commercial correspondent relations with larger banks around the world in order to expand 
export and imports.  A fourth element of the pr ogramme was trade facilita tion and diagnostics and 
logistics.  Since the 2007 Global Review, the World Bank had put together the Logistics Performance 
Indicator.  It had also expanded its investment lending in this area as well as technical assistance.  Many delegations had participated in the Ba nk's dissemination activities on logistics performance 
indicators which allowed countries to benchmark them selves in terms of how well their ports handled 
a cargo;  e.g., how long did it take to get from factor y to ship and with what efficiency and where in 
the value chain could countries make small inv estments which overcame binding constraints for 
reducing time, therefore saving money and increasing productivity. 
30. A sixth area of the programme related to training  and technical assistance activities.  Here, the 
World Bank had been working with the WTO Institu te for Technical Cooperation (ITTC) to develop 
increasing collaboration in terms of parallel activiti es that mutually reinforced each other and had 
some sort of synergy.  And, where appropriate, the World Bank and WTO were also participating in 
each others training courses.  The Bank was also  working with other partners to expand these 
activities.  At the 2007 Global Review President Zoe llick had also referred to certain types of global 
public goods and one of these was the World Trade Indicators.  The Bank was also working with other partners, such as UNCTAD and the ITC, on a software platform – the so-called Woods 
Programme – that allowed governments to analyse th e restrictions their exporters faced in foreign 
markets.  An ongoing set of activities that the Bank was carrying out as part of its research 
programme concerned investing in global knowle dge on trade, and a report by the Growth 
Commission – chaired by the laureate Michael Spen ce – had recently been made public.  The Bank 
was planning to hold a dissemination event in Ge neva on 3-4 September.  The Growth Commission WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
Page 10  
 
  had put together a successful reform by not only ministers from around the world, but also other 
development practitioners, and representatives from the academic and business sector, to discuss how 
to explain long-term success.  One of the conclusi ons was that trade was very important to that 
process.   
31. One of the reasons he had presented the seven- point list was not only to give an update but 
also to make the point that AfT was really a multi-dimensional concept.  It was not just about 
concessional lending which was really only one part of the story.  It was also about a wide variety of services and capacity building, benchmarking, and access to knowledge that would not otherwise be 
made available all of which had become important as governments sat down to put together their AfT 
strategies.  It was important for trade ministries to be able to put demands on the table to their 
economic cabinet to avail themselves of this complete array of services.   
32. He then referred to a graph which demonstrat ed that World Bank lending to low-income 
countries was rising.  The graph showed figures fo r concessional lending – trade promotion activities 
as per the World Bank's definition which was sligh tly different from the OECD definition – to low-
income countries for trade-related activities.  In its  definition, the World Bank, for example, excluded 
infrastructure except where that in frastructure was directly related to exports.  Similarly, with 
transport, the Bank did not consider real roads but  rather a road to a port as being a trade-related 
activity.  The same was true regarding the percentag es of a loan that was associated with a particular 
activity as being trade related.  The overall numbers by the Bank therefore tended to be slightly less 
than what would be seen in the OECD numbers, ev en for reporting for the World Bank.  The main 
point, however, was that lending to low-income  countries had gone up from about USD142 million in 
fiscal year 2003 to around USD673 million in fiscal year 2008.  An interesting pattern that had 
emerged was what was happening to non-concessiona l lending to middle- and low-income countries 
which made up quite a large component of the Bank's  overall lending activities.  Here, figures showed 
that there appeared to be a slight decline over the last few years.  One of the reasons for the decline 
could perhaps be that money was going into other projects, for example, infrastructure or general 
budget support, or into other activities instead, b ecause the Bank's overall lending portfolio to middle-
income countries had been expanding during the past few years. 
33. Moving to loans, a larger number of loans were going to developing countries.  There was a 
stock of approximately 67 loans outstanding to 47 different countries for projects that the Bank was in the process of implementing.  Given the number of technical assistance and country study activities it was interesting that the graph seemed to show a stab ilizing or even a slight decline in recent years 
both for country studies and technical assistance activities.  Technical assistance was actually 
increasing while the number of activities was falling.  It was nevertheless important to recall that the 
Bank had a wide variety of activities in its ove rall AfT activities, ranging from country economic 
memoranda in the case of Peru, to a trade report on Madagascar, and these often led to lending activities.  For example, the DTIS the Bank worked on with the EIF partnership had produced a real 
private-sector development loan that focused on redu cing the costs in the value chain of crop exports.  
As mentioned, training was also expanding and the Bank's activities in conjunction with the WTO 
were set to expand further.   His presentation included a graph which showed the number of 
participant training days – sponsored courses associat ed with trade – in the World Bank Institute.  As 
could be seen, there had been a very sharp increase  in the sponsored courses, a trend that the Bank 
expected would continue in the future.  The Bank had also been working with several partners in 
putting together a new software platform called the World Trade Indicators.  The software platform 
was particularly germane to the AfT discussion b ecause it allowed country de legations to access and 
pull up several elements of their own trade policy fra mework – such as, for example, average tariffs 
that they had vis-à-vis  imports.  It also allowed them to look at their external environment, particularly 
the terms of market access in foreign countries and the average tariff that their exporters paid in 
particular markets around the world.  The platform also contained information on each country's 
institutional environment and aspects of trade facilitati on, such as logistic performance indicators, and 
there was equally a lot of information on trade outcomes which showed how rapidly exports were  WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
 Page 11 
 
 
  growing, and how these export growths compared to other growth rates around the world.  He invited 
delegations to take a look at the website which he considered to be a very valuable tool to compare 
country performances and to look at obstacles that  might be experienced on the supply side and on 
accessing external markets. 
34. Partnership was an important and integral part of all the activities that the Bank was 
undertaking, whether it was in the form of trust funds, lending, or global public goods, or research 
data and training.  Examples of trust funds incl uded the Standards Development Forum;  the EIF 
under the leadership of Ambassador Maraping;  the multi-donor fund that had recently been put together in the Bank itself to promote trade activ ity which amounted to some USD30 million to help 
countries promote the specific types of trade capacity  building;  the Africa Catalytic Growth Fund;  
the Laos and Cambodia, and Viet Nam multi-donor trust funds which were  government controlled 
entities that executed the projects and where the Bank simply assisted with the organization of the activities and mobilization of external funds.  Examples of lending included the co-financing 
arrangement with the agency for development fro m France;  the World Bank Development Policy 
Loan to Mauritius which had proved to be a very su ccessful partnership for all parties;  and, in 
partnership with the AsDB, the Trade Facilitati on Action Plan in the Greater Mekong Delta.  On 
research data and training activities, the Bank was working increasingly with an ever wider network 
of private academics, the regional development banks , UN agencies, and other research networks.  In 
respect to the work on data, he wished to underscore the importance of the Bank's partnership with 
UNCTAD and ITC and it was hoped that a common data platform could be put together where each entity could put in information that could then be  manipulated in such a way as to make it easily 
accessible to the rest of the world on a free basis.   The Bank was also working with UNDP on follow-
of up activities such as DTIS that had been done in Cambodia.   
35. He then gave a word of caution saying that desp ite all its efforts, AfT in terms of lending had 
actually fallen.  This was partly because, on the supply side, AfT could only expand if overall 
development assistance expanded and recent increases in  overall aid levels had stalled.  They were 
still important but they were falling short of what w as expected to be needed  to meet the Gleneagles 
commitments.  For example, growth in 2006 was onl y 4 per cent in real terms against 10 per cent in 
2005 – a really important increase – and 5 per cen t for the period 2002-2006.  What was important 
was that overall development assistance was actually  beginning to taper off slightly and it therefore 
required all who cared about developing countries to  put their shoulders to the wheel and encourage 
donors to meet their Gleneagles commitments.  Ju st as there had been slowdowns in the global 
economy it was likely that there would be slowdo wns in overall development assistance.  Pressure 
was on the budgets of all donor communities and it was not unrealistic to expect that the development 
assistance budgets would also come under those same pressures.  The good new was that donors had 
been very forthcoming to the IDA replenishment.  Fifteen donors had managed to mobilize some USD41.5 billion, including contributions from the World Bank, to be spread over a three-year period 
that would be very important in allowing IDA to  move forward and provide resources for AfT and for 
investments in infrastructure, perhaps to the order of USD15 billion a year over the next three years. 
36. With regard to the demand side, he said that th e recent food energy crisis had shifted priorities 
in nearly all developing countries – and probably rightly so.  But it had placed unexpected pressures 
on budget, for example, from expenditures of an em ergency character to support consumption to the 
poorest.  At the same time, many governments had re duced tariffs to food imports to lower the price 
in the domestic market.  This was the right policy to  take but it meant that there was a budgetary cost 
in terms of collected tariff revenues;  revenues were  down and expenditures were up.  Energy costs to 
government activities had also risen, and for many g overnments interest rates were no longer quite as 
favourable as they had been in the past.  All of  this had put pressures on governments which meant 
that filling the gap and the demand for general budget support were likely to increase.  Finance 
ministers would therefore probably focus on borrowing requests to donors and much more on budget 
support and support for emergency social programmes than  they had in the past.  As a result, it would 
be harder to make a case in economic cabinets fo r specific types of investment as far as AfT was WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
Page 12  
 
  concerned.  It was therefore important to integr ate AfT strategies into national growth strategies 
because, in spite of the current crisis situation in  many countries, growth was very important to the 
sustainability of poverty reduction efforts.  And AfT – and trade itself – was, of course, very 
important for growth.  One should therefore think a bout how countries could be assisted to integrate 
trade and AfT, particularly into national developmen t strategies, in times that were likely to become 
much more pressing than they had been in the past. 
37. The Chairman 
then opened the floor fo r comments and questions. 
38. The representative of Ghana  expressed his appreciation for the excellent updates of the good 
work they was being done in various areas.  He ha d two questions for the African Development Bank.  
First, it seemed that while other Banks had made some significant and tangible progress, the same 
perhaps could not be said of the AfDB as it appear ed to still be in a very preliminary phase of 
assessment.  He asked what were the reasons fo r this slow progress.  Second, while the Paris 
Declaration Principles had been mentioned by the As DB and IaDB, the AfDB had been silent on this, 
and he wanted to know whether ther e were any specific reasons for this. 
39. The representative of India  also expressed appreciation for the excellent presentations.  
Referring to the presentation by the World Bank, he asked whether the Bank could provide 
clarification on the fact that a number of loans were almost remaining static while the number of studies were falling.  Was this because there had been too many completed studies awaiting funding by the Bank or was it that the Bank was looking for some bankable studies to lead them to projects that met the techno-financial criteria of the Bank.  Regarding the word of caution given by the World 
Bank, India would be interested to receive deta ils on the categoric statement that challenge was 
making AfT an integral part of the national growth  strategy.  Was this an identification of the 
challenge or a conclusion of any objective and count ry study.  Another question his delegation had 
concerned the reference by the IaDB to implemen ting AfT in Latin America and the Caribbean and 
the mention of a need to tap into economies of scal e and regional synergies.  He asked whether this 
particular aspect was also being identified and dea lt with by the AfDB or the AsDB and whether, 
from their point of view, there were any reasons in economic terms that for what could possibly 
succeed in Latin America and the Caribbean could cr eate a different set of challenges in the African 
and Asia Pacific regions.  
40. The representative of Mali
 thanked the speakers for the detailed information they had 
provided.  He wished to associate his delegation with the question put to the AfDB by Ghana about 
why the AfDB had not been able to produce optimis tic figures with regard to what was achieved on 
the ground.  His delegation also wanted to know whet her there had been any change in the content of 
aid because it seemed that presentations had focu sed on reimbursable bank loans whereas AfT as 
defined by the AfT Task Force was about non-reimbur sable resources.  In other words, should AfT in 
the future also include loans that institutions coul d make to countries.  As far as operationalizing AfT 
was concerned, he recalled that both UNCTAD and the ITC were involved in the Integrated 
Framework and that all were aware of the capacity  of UNCTAD with regard to analysing proposals 
for solution.  Turning to the presentation by the World Bank, Mali wished to have clarification 
concerning the recently-launched re-insurance programme and asked whether there was a mid-term evaluation exercise undertaken with regard to the usefulness of the programme.  His delegation also 
wished to ask the World Bank to provide further cl arification on the Africa Catalytic Growth Fund.  
Finally, concerning additionality, the World Bank had raised the question of risk and the slowing of a 
part of this official development aid which could go to AfT, and he asked what could delegations 
expect in this regard.  Mali joined the World Ba nk in making an appeal to donors to do more when 
looking at the food crisis affecting developing countries – particularly as far as LDCs and especially 
landlocked developing countries we re concerned where the price of hydrocarbons was increasing 
dramatically.  His delegation asked whether all of this could be looked at in the context of AfT.  What 
already existed needed to be preserved and mini mal conditions had to be ensured in terms of 
infrastructure and all related areas to be able  to support the AfT development efforts.  WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
 Page 13 
 
 
  41. The representative of Pakistan  expressed his delegation's appreci ation for the update given by 
the speakers on the latest developments in their r espective areas.  Referring to the AsDB's mention of 
ratcheting up of the quantum of aid in various trad e-related areas, he asked whether the Bank could 
give an approximate percentage figure and how much this actually amounted to.  The AsDB had also 
spoken about a number of pipeline projects for whic h apparently funding was still awaited.  Did the 
AsDB expect for the funding to come up in the fo reseeable future or was it a part of their annual 
programmes.  Turing to the OECD presentation about using the website as a facility in sharing best 
practices, and the fact that the OECD thought it would be very expensive in terms of having an 
interactive website, Pakistan considered that that proposal needed to be brought up in greater detail 
and in a more cost-effective way because there were ma ny things that could be shared solely in terms 
of information.  The WTO website, for instance, could have the partner-country questionnaire and 
how countries were answering it prominently displayed. 
42. The representative of the United States  said that what had been important in the aid-for-trade 
initiative and of benefit to donors, recipients and the international organizations alike was the fact that 
for the first time in a very intensive way trade offi cials and development officials were trying to speak 
the same language. A vital part of AfT was taking tr ade out of a stovepipe and making sure it became 
part of the national development plan of any count ry.  In the United States, for example, economic 
growth and trade funding was part of the US's overall official development assistance.  The US endeavoured to respond to the needs identified by each  government and it was vital that trade was part 
of that because that led to the flow of funds.  It was also important to note that in the overall scheme of things the most efficient use of resources that we re available was by having an integrated business 
plan.  Part of the answer to the current food cris is, for example, was trade-related assistance because 
what you needed to move food were roads, cust oms, and border measures.  Then you had to make 
sure – as its partners were doing – that you had all the pieces to put together in order to have the best 
and most efficient results with the outcomes that people were looking for.   A programme that the United States and other donors were very committed to was an African programme led by the Africa 
Union, called CAADP (Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme).  CAADP – 
which USAID representatives considered to be th e largest trade programme – was an African-wide 
programme focused on addressing agricultural needs, and the second of its four pillars was trade.  It 
was a partnership between all partic ipants and was an example of a trade-related programme that was 
working.  The best and only way for AfT to succeed was for all participants to work in partnership 
and that included on the monitoring exercise.  She hoped that all countries would make an effort to 
participate actively in the monitoring exercise fo r which the OECD was working to simplify the 
recipient questionnaire.   Trade ministries and donor agencies should work together and she said that 
as far as the US was concerned this in ternal coherence was already working. 
43. The representative of Canada
 said that, on the monitoring exercise, it seemed to him that 
Members had agreed to endeavour to answer thr ee questions, namely, what was the demand for AfT, 
what was the supply of ODA resources to address that demand, and did any of it work.  Much 
progress had been made on answering those questions  but more needed to be done.  Although donors 
had had a very useful technical discussion at the OECD the previous day about how to improve reporting as far as the WTO monitoring exercise was c oncerned, certain elements needed to be fine 
tuned or approved.  He considered that the most intelligent and useful thing that had recently been 
done in that regard was to have moved toward s adopting the mainstreaming approach using the 
existing Creditor Reporting System and drafting AfT into that process.  As the United States had 
mentioned, in order for this to work the other si de of the equation was needed as well.  Here, the 
OECD had addressed some of the reasons why there had been a poor response rate to the recipient 
questionnaire and had discussed ways the response rate  could be improved.  Clearly, in order to have 
a successful monitoring process the demand side of the equation needed to be understood and at 
present that was not the case.  There was a lot of an ecdotal information but not all the information was 
coming together in one place.  For example, it was important to understand to what degree developing 
countries were internalising AfT objectives into their national planning strategies.  In this regard, he 
looked forward to a much more detailed report and di scussion at the next Global Review.  It was also  WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
Page 14  
 
  important to have a better understa nding of what else was happening in other countries.  Anecdotally, 
and also because of the cotton process, he had a good idea of what China was doing in that area.  But 
in order to take the initiative forward it would also  be important to hear from what were sometimes 
called the emerging donors.  He was also aware of  the good work that Brazil was doing, particularly 
in Lusaphone countries in Africa, and it would be usef ul for the CTD to know more about that work.  
Although the next step was the evaluation side, the m onitoring side needed to be done first.  In this 
regard, he was pleased with what the OECD had sai d about the idea of capturing some of the existing 
lessons learnt because another point was that AfT wa s not exactly new.  It had existed for a while and 
some lessons had already been learnt.  Mali, for ex ample, had talked about the integrated framework.  
There was a body of experience in the IF, and a body of experience in the bank's related lending 
programmes, and lessons could be learnt from that.  it was also time to start learning lessons about 
how the growing programme in this  area was being implemented. 
44. Turning to the question of the reviews, he wi shed to thank the RDBs for their interesting 
presentations and for providing information on what th ey were trying to do in their respective regions 
to move the AfT initiative forward.  In his view, this underscored the wisdom of the AfT Task Force 
in reaching out to the RDBs and also of WTO management for including the RDBs on the AfT 
Advisory Group.  Clearly the RDBs were much clos er to the action and knew the territory a lot better 
than most.  He saw their participation at the mee ting as a demonstration of their level of engagement 
and would be interested to hear answers to some of the questions that had been raised by other 
delegations which showed that they , too, were engaged in the process.   Some interesting partnership 
building with the RECs and other organizations ha d been demonstrated which was critical to the 
success of the AfT initiative and he hope d that this would be kept up. 
45. Although the regional reviews held in 2007 ha d been a good way of increasing awareness 
building and literacy about the AfT concept and what was meant by the new acronym, from the 
reports of those reviews aid for trade appeared to be  very abstract and did not relate, for example, to 
the reality in West Africa or in the Caribbean.  His delegation was therefore very interested in the idea 
of working more at a sub-regional or national leve l to increase awareness of the work being done.  He 
hoped that by taking these initiatives and ideas forward th e RDBs and other partners would be able to 
bring some useful lessons learnt to the next Global Review.   
46. Turning to specific questions, he said that venu es of the planned reviews and who was to be 
invited needed to be known in advance if the revi ews were to be successful.  Canada, for example, 
would be interested in the Caribb ean event because it had a fairly important programme in that region, 
but it needed time to prepare and mobilize resource s.  So, it would be helpful to have a detailed 
roadmap as soon as it was available.  On the question of who needed to be at the reviews, it was 
important to be very assiduous in identifying who to invite to make sure the events were useful.  
Another question was how were outcomes of the discussi ons going to be reported.  In this respect, he 
would be interested to hear from the RDBs how th ey hoped to communicate the results of the events 
to the CTD and, more importantly, to the next Global AfT Review. 
47. The representative of the European Communities
 said that the range of interventions and 
requests for the floor were testimony to the interest  members had in aid for trade.  Much work had 
been done since the CTD meeting in February and all members were very k een and interested in 
knowing more and also in sharing views.  In this respect, the EC wished for the CTD to meet more 
regularly – if needed also on an informal basis – in  order to be able to have more interaction on AfT 
and to work on a constant and regular basis with, for example, the RDBs and OECD.  His delegation 
welcomed the work that the RDBs were doing both to put AfT high on their own agenda as well as on 
the agenda of the regions in which they operated.   
48. One of the questions the EC had regarding the RDB's plans, and more specifically concerning 
the reviews, was what was the common element to  the work they were doing.  The WTO had 
provided a roadmap on AfT in which there were some  indications as to what general characteristics  WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
 Page 15 
 
 
  the AfT reviews should have.  At the same time, a lthough there had been an in-depth discussion about 
the aims and goals of the AfT reviews, as donors the EC had some ideas and important elements of its 
own which it wished to have the opportunity to  discuss on another occasion and perhaps informally.  
For example, as Canada had said, who would be inv ited, who needed to be at the reviews, and who 
was going to be reviewed, etc.  It was important  to have a clear understanding of these elements 
because perhaps some donors, including the EC, might decide to do reviews in addition to the ones 
that were being planned by the RDBs.  In terms of objectives of the reviews, the EC felt that, for 
example, the RDBs had an important role to play – together with others – to  facilitate and stimulate 
sound AfT processes.  This meant seeing if count ries had done a needs assessment, if they had 
prepared an AfT strategy, and if they had also in tegrated trade into their development strategies.  
Countries would then present trade as one of thei r priorities when they interacted with donors, 
including the EC.  As had been shown when the EC  had presented the EU Aid-for-Trade Strategy, the 
EU, the Commission and members States were all committed to the AfT agenda both in quantitative and qualitative terms.  However, AfT was part of ai d so, in the EC's view, it also had to respond to 
sound processes within countries.  In the planned review s, the RDBs could therefore play a useful role 
in showcasing sound AfT preparatory processes as we ll as the result, examples, good experiences, and 
lessons to be learnt.   
49. Another important element where the RDBs should play a role was networking of all the AfT 
stakeholders and the RDBs themsel ves had mentioned their plans to create AfT networks.  The RDBs 
were of course a player but were by no means the only ones in their own regions.  There were many sub-regional organizations in many regions which were also active in  the area of AfT and which had 
given a better capacity locally.  The EC therefore fe lt it was important that work was done together 
with other stakeholders including, inter alia , other regional players on AfT, the private sector, and 
donors such as the EC.  Regional development banks had a very important role to play in aid for trade 
and in the preparation of the reviews where they c ould use their privileged contacts to help trade and 
development worlds meet in the regions and countri es in which they operated.  As had already been 
said, aid for trade was the perfect example wher e these worlds that tended to speak different 
languages could get together and th e EC counted on the RDBs to facilitate this interaction in the 
regions and countries in which they worked. 
50. In conclusion, he said that the EC was very much involved in the work being done by the 
OECD and it would continue to work towards havi ng questionnaires that were useful, manageable and 
that would be used intensively also by the AfT be neficiary countries as an essential element of the 
reporting and mutual accountability on AfT. 
51. The representative of Norway
 thanked the RDBs, the OECD and World Bank representatives 
for their enlightening presentations.  He wished to briefly comment on the issue of one of the 
objectives of the 2008 Roadmap, i.e., to increase deve loping country ownership of AfT, that had also 
been raised by other speakers – both in the presentati ons and in the debate.  Norway believed that in 
order to ensure national ownership AfT must be anchored in national development plans.  That meant, 
for example, that resources allocated to trade development had to be weighed against resource 
allocation of other priority areas such as health a nd education.  This could be a difficult process but it 
needed to be done for a number of reasons.  On e such reason was that donors strived to align 
development assistances with national development strategies which meant that AfT would tend to 
flow to countries where aid was part and parcel of  the national development strategy. Pushing AfT on 
countries that had not made trade their priority in their own development strategies might not be in 
conformity with the Paris Declaration and hence with the WTO AfT Task Force Recommendations.  The formulation and execution of development st rategies were first and foremost the national 
responsibility.  Integrating trade properly into natio nal plans would take time but fortunately there 
were already fairly robust planning processes in place in many, if not most, of the WTO low-income 
country members.  He referred to the PRSP processes which, he said, should be country driven and 
comprehensive and which should form the basis fo r assistance from the World Bank and the IMF.  In 
practice, the PRSPs also worked as convergence poi nts for bilateral donors.  The Bank and the Fund WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
Page 16  
 
  were also key partners to countries concerned in th e formulation of the PRSPs.  In that perspective 
and in light of the special relationship between  the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF, Norway 
would like to see the Bank and the Fund as strong facilita tors for the integration of trade into national 
development strategies.  His delegation was theref ore encouraged by the strong emphasis that the 
World Bank had put on the importance of national deve lopment strategies.  In the context of AfT, 
Norway believed it was important that everyone c oncerned – countries that wished to benefit from 
AfT, and agencies and bilateral donors wishing to be their partners – focus on national plans and 
strategies. 
52. With regard to the presentation by the Inte r-American Development Bank, the representative 
of Brazil
 asked what was the degree of partnership of the IaDB with ECLAC because, as far as he was 
aware, ECLAC had the best database on the social and economic indicators in Latin America and the 
Caribbean.  Since it had been stated that the count ries in the region still lacked much embedded trade 
policies in their national development strategies, it would be very useful – especially for low-income 
countries in the region – for ECLAC to provide inputs that would help the process and to draft a needs 
assessment.   
53. He said that although it was good to recall that  the AfDB and UNECA had been working 
together in promoting their regional development of AfT in the African continen t, Brazil felt that this 
sort of cooperation was still lacking in the Latin Amer ican region.  With respect to the kinds of skill in 
the sub-regional process, in the Latin American regi on it might be useful to work with LAIA (Latin 
American Integration Association) because it already provided a forum where many Latin American countries worked together in sub-regional trade ag reements.  It was important to have the proper 
forum to discuss cooperation and technical assist ance, and AfT more generally.  As far as 
infrastructure to promote trade was concerned, he suggested that the IaDB worked in collaboration 
with on-going initiatives such as the Plan Puebla-P anama which tried to enhance infrastructure, 
energy, telecommunications, and transport between Me xico and the countries of Central America, as 
well as the South America Infrastructure Initiative which enhanced the links in trade, energy, 
telecommunications and transport of all the countries of South America.  These existing initiatives 
could boost the AfT initiative in the region and mo reover would avoid overlap ping or duplication of 
efforts. 
54. Regarding the Paris Declaration, he pointed out that the so-called revision of the Declaration 
would take place in Ghana in September and that Br azil was very willing to participate in the revision 
process because, although Brazil had endorsed the Paris Declaration, it did not believe it was a 
suitable instrument for South-South cooperation.  A review of the Paris Declaration might therefore 
bring it more in line with the realities of South- South cooperation among developing countries.  This 
was also something that could help the OECD in its review of the framework and of the questionnaires for the so-called emerging donors. 
55. Turning to the issue of trade finance, he sai d that his delegation supported what the World 
Bank had said with regard to putti ng new emphasis on trade finance, particularly since at the present 
time there were a lot of strong negative effects in rating and risk assessment associated with 
commercial banks in developing countries.  The iron y was that, on the one hand, developing countries 
were now in a strong fiscal and monetary positio n yet, on the other, one was being punished by 
regulatory flaws and other developed markets.  It was good to see that the Bank was acting in a way to 
boost trade finance which was important, for instance, for South-South trade. 
56. He concluded by commending the World Bank fo r its advocacy for trade.  This was very 
important and timely, especially at this critical junc ture of the Doha Round.  For instance, Brazil had 
frequently been told in the past that openness to fo reign trade would be good for Brazil.  Some leaders 
in the developed world, however, were now pub licly questioning what good did competition bring to 
them, so it was commendable that the World Bank wa s trying to remind people of the advantages of 
open trade and trade economic reforms.  WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
 Page 17 
 
 
  57. Referring to the presentation by the Inter-Ameri can Development Bank, the representative of 
Ecuador  suggested to the IaDB that it evaluate its relationship with sub-regi onal banks, for example, 
the ANDEAN Development Promotion Bank.  It was al so important to think about the role of sub-
regional integration institutions such as MERCOSUR a nd CARICOM.  With regard to the mention of 
trade being an important issue in the political and public debates in many Caribbean countries, this 
was also true in most Latin American countries – in cluding Ecuador.  Also with respect to the IaDB 
presentation, his delegation wished for clarification as  to how trade was conceptualized in the context 
of AfT.  In the presentation it was mentioned that  AfT was a priority for the majority of Latin 
American and Caribbean countries and that developm ent agendas and strategies had incorporated AfT 
into their agendas;  Ecuador believed that AfT w as an important instrument as was monitoring and 
both could be used by all developing countries. 
58. The representative of Nepal  expressed his delegation's appreciation for the detailed 
information that had been provided.  Aid for Trade was significant for Nepal because it was an 
important innovation and an indispensable element to providing a fair deal to LDCs in addressing 
their transition costs and work on supply-side constr aints.  Referring to the presentation by the AsDB, 
he asked how the regional technical group was to be constituted.  The AsDB had also mentioned plans 
to scale up operational activities and his delegation wanted to know what the plans were for the 
implementation of this concept.  Also, with r espect to the mention of more support for regional 
capacity building, he asked what that concept was, how was it implemented and what were its 
modalities.  Was the AsDB, for example, going to  go through regional coope ration organizations.  
Nepal also wanted to know what was the process of lending for trade-related projects.  With regard to 
the World Bank's word of caution that AfT might halt, this was disappointing because it came at a 
time when one was looking for increased quantum of ai d for trade.  The comment was also perplexing 
in the context of the need to move the policy de bate to the practicalities of implementation in a 
substantial manner and his delegati on wished to have more information about this from the World 
Bank.  He asked whether AfT was being linked with  overall development assistance or were there any 
conditions attached to it.  Nepal was of the vi ew that AfT should be in addition to existing 
development aid flows and should be tailored in an unconditional manner to closely reflect specific 
needs and situations, and individual needs and capaci ties.  Trade was an important policy measure for 
development, a powerful tool for poverty reduction, and an instrument for development.  AfT should 
inspire growth and development;  if there was e nough sense of economic activity, that gave rise to 
tension and conflict which would have far-reaching implications. 
59. The representative of Japan  said that in May Japan had organized the Fourth Conference on 
African Development in Tokyo, and TICAD IV in Yokohama where trade promotion had been 
discussed as a priority.  Japan wanted to provide ai d for trade so as to make African countries more 
competitive in the world market.  Also discu ssed was ownership by developing countries and 
partnerships which were essential in AfT and in ot her forms of development assistance.  Monitoring 
needed to be seen from the same angle and Japan  supported the regional a nd national approach in 
monitoring methods.  He said that regional banks pl ayed a very important role in facilitating the 
integration of trade into national development programmes. 
60. The representative of China , in response to the concern registered by Canada about China's 
strategy, said that as a developing and also recipient country China attached great importance to the AfT initiative and tried its best within its capacity  to provide assistance through bilateral and then 
multilateral channels to inform Members of what it had done during the past years.  China had 
provided detailed information at the 2007 Global Re view and in 2008 had tabled a document in the 
CTD to update Members on the progress between China and African-country cooperation.  
Furthermore, China had conducted several bilatera l dialogues with international organizations and 
interested members.  This window of communica tion would continue to open and China was willing 
to cooperate with Members to share views and experiences.   WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
Page 18  
 
  61. On the OECD questionnaires, he realized that China had not provided feedback in 2007, but 
his capital was working very hard to get the nece ssary information.  Since China did not have a 
specific development agency it woul d need some time to coordinate the different ministries involved 
and he hoped that answers could be provided this year. 
62. The representative of the African Development Bank
 thanked Ghana and Mali for their 
questions and wished to explain briefly the situa tion which, he said, was not entirely as they had 
described.  The AfDB had more than 40 years of Af T activities – it was just the name that had been 
changed.  It had been carrying out trade capacity bui lding, mainly in infrastructure, and had a private 
sector operation which was now striving and which had significantly increased its activities.  Perhaps 
it was a question of now having to assess and quantif y its trade-related activities according to the 
official definition of AfT.  The aim of the AfDB 's  presentation at the present meeting was to focus 
and share with Members information on its AfT in itiative.  The AfDB was not lagging behind other 
regional development banks as could be confirmed al so by the WTO.  The situation in Africa was 
perhaps a little more complex than in other regi ons.  Trade flows were still marginal in many 
countries and the AfDB's work would rely substan tially on regional economic communities which, as 
Members were aware, were not on the same level of preparedness.  The existing overlaps in the RECs 
were currently being tackled by the African Union with the help of the AfDB and UNECA and what 
made the job more complex and interesting was the question of terminology;  it was not always easy 
to speak the same language.  A n eeds assessment was being done and the AfDB was trying to help in 
mainstreaming trade.  It had also produced a strategy  on regional operations.  All this showed that the 
AfDB was moving on several fronts at the same ti me and it hoped to be ready for the next phase 
together with colleagues from the other regional development ba nks.  The AfDB was following the 
Paris Principles – which it considered a pre-requis ite – for all its operations  and would be present at 
the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness to be held in Accra in September.  In conclusion, and as 
highlighted by the EU, he said that networking was very important and the AfDB was keen to learn 
from and share its experience with other RDBs, the World Bank, UNDP, and other colleagues.  
Efforts had to be pulled together and the AfDB felt optimistic about the time ahead and for presenting 
its roadmap in due time by May 2009. 
63. In response to the question of when and where the reviews would take place, the 
representative of the Inter-American Development Bank  said that it was presently working on the 
venue and dates for the national and regional reviews.   Most of the national reviews could take place 
in the second semester of 2008 and early 2009, but the IaDB still needed to consult closely with 
countries, donors, and all relevant stakeholders re garding specific dates and places.  On the question 
of who needed to be at the reviews, in the IaDB's view, all relevant stakeholders, including countries,  
donors, private sector representatives, regional organi zations, should attend;  the IaDB saw its role 
more as a facilitator.  On the issue that a number of  delegations had raised about how to coordinate 
with other regional organizations such as AL ADI, ECLAC, CAF, and the ANDEAN Community 
Secretariat, the IaDB's intention was to coordinate  with all of these regional organizations so as to 
integrate them into the process as really relevant stakeholders.  The main objectives of the national 
and regional reviews was very clearly to showcase the process, i.e., how to do and how to come up with national and regional strategies;  how to build consensus internally;  how to coordinate;  and the 
importance of getting finance and trade officials an d different stakeholders together all around the 
same table.  In conclusion, she said that th e Plan Puebla-Panama and the South American 
Infrastructure initiatives mentioned by Brazil were r eally important because their objectives were at 
the core of the AfT initiative and they had the poten tial to boost that initiative in the region.  The 
IaDB was therefore following th ese two initiatives very closely. 
64. Referring to the question of regional economies of scale and regional corporation strategies, 
the representative of the Asian Development Bank
 said that the bedrock of AsDB's activities over the 
last 40 years had been the sub-regional programmes such as the Greater Mekong Sub-region.  So, the 
AsDB had operated at that sub-regional level.  Two years ago the AsDB had come up with a regional 
corporation integration strategy which had been endorsed by the Board in 2006 and which had four  WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
 Page 19 
 
 
  pillars:  infrastructure, trade and investment, mone y and finance, and regiona l public goods.  This was 
how the AsDB was seeking to ratchet up its regiona l corporation activities.  In its 2020 Strategy the 
AsDB expected that 30 per cent of AfT activity would be in regional corporations.  With regard to the 
composition of the Regional Technical Group (RTG), the AsDB wished at first to  be cautious and to 
keep it as a small group that would be active and committed to moving forward.   The initial 
composition of the RTG would be a few developing member countries, a few multilaterals and others, 
a few other regional players, and, possibly, the priv ate sector.  If that worked and if coherence was 
good, the AsDB would then move forward to expa nd on that composition.  The idea was to have a 
step-by-step approach and to work  in a serious manner;  if the RTG was too big, the expectations 
would be too high and nothing much would come out  of it.  He then asked those who would be 
interested to work on the RTG to  inform the AsDB so that it c ould try and move forward on its 
composition. 
65. In terms of how the AsDB had scaled up its work, as part of a general increase in the AsDB's 
work, President Kuroda had decided that it would be  very valuable for the AsDB to play an even 
greater role in the regions so the current year w ould be historically the largest lending year.  The 
AsDB expected to lend USD10 billio n dollars during the current year which was a record.  This had 
been achieved by pushing lending limits both in term s of ADF funds and base lending.  As regards a 
specific figure for AfT, he would need to consul t with the AsDB accountants because it depended on 
classification, i.e., whether it related to infrastructure or non-infrastructure.   
66. In conclusion, with regard to  how Nepal or other countries could start the process to access 
trade-related lending, he said ther e were two levels of engagement.  First would be at the country 
discussions and the country programming exercise th at governments would engage with the AsDB.  
Second, would be the regional activity at the leve l of SASEC with which the AsDB was currently 
trying to work.   
67. The representative of the World Bank  referred to the question by India as to whether there 
was any analytical grounding to the fact that the challenge would be to in tegrate AfT into national 
development programmes during a period of what was likely to be more pressing and scarce 
resources.  He said the question had been answered  in part by Norway and the United States when 
they had talked about how these pieces fitted together .  But perhaps also a starting point of analysis 
was the recently published Growth Commission Re port that had emphasized the key element of 
access to the global market as a pilla r of the success of the most rapidly growing countries since 1980.  
More importantly, it had to do with the limited res ources that economic cabinets were going to have at 
their disposal, both nationally and in the form of de velopment assistance, to allocate across a portfolio 
including food aid, emergency support, etc.  So, the message was that if AfT was going to increase it 
had to be part of the national dialogue.  On the qu estion of mid-term evaluations of the trade finance 
programme, to his knowledge there were none, but this  could be checked by referring to the relevant 
website.  Referring to the comment by Brazil, a nd to emphasize how important the trade finance 
programme had been in some particular markets, he said that one third of the trade transactions 
guaranteed by the IFC reinsurance scheme had to do w ith South-South trade.  Moreover, one fourth of 
the guarantees had been extended to countries importi ng food and fertilizers so, from that perspective, 
it could be seen that a market test did exist and the programme seemed to be working very well. 
68. The representative of UNIDO  presented information on its Inter-Agency Resource Guide 
mandated by the UN Chief Executive Board (C EB) and the High-Level Committee on Programmes 
(HLCP) following their decision to establish bette r inter-agency cooperation and a Task Force on 
Economic Development.  Three focus areas had been selected and UNIDO had been mandated the 
area of efficiency and integration which later became known as trade capacity building.  The Resource Guide was the result of the combined effo rts and assistance of 21 agencies plus five other 
inter-agency mechanisms to come up with and commit  to one publication on what the agencies could 
offer to countries on all areas of trade developm ent.  The Guide had been completed in March 
following various meetings, a questionnaire by IT C, UNECE and UNIDO, and the hiring of an ODI WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
Page 20  
 
  representative as a resource person, and had then been  formally submitted to the HLCP and the CEB.  
The key objectives of the Guide were:  to have increased transparency on available UN-system wide 
services in trade capacity;  to show how to bette r integrate building synergies and cooperation and 
how to contribute to county level programming on trade areas;  to have a mechanism to support AfT 
and the enhanced integrated frame work and a mechanism to enter the trade and productivity cluster 
which was led by UNCTAD;  and to have the means of training the UN resident coordinators.  The 
Guide – which could be downloaded at the UNIDO website www.unido.org/tcb – was being distributed to member states and would be subm itted to industry and trade ministries, and to UN 
country teams and donors.  It would also be dist ributed at the September meeting of the UN General 
Assembly.  Significant interest had already been  shown in the Guide and UNIDO were now working 
on a modified version for 2009 for which it woul d appreciate receiving feedback or comments. 
69. The representative then gave a brief explanati on of the initiative on the Cluster on trade and 
productive capacity which the CEB had endorsed in  October 2007 as being a pivotal component of 
the UN country assistance plans.  The initiative was mostly driven by UNCTAD but Membership also 
included UNIDO, FAO, ITC, WTO, UNDP, five UN regional commissions, UNEP and UNOPS and 
was flexible according to initiatives and activiti es.  Its objectives included policy coherence;  
interagency cooperation and integrated activities wi thin the UN System;  support to the AfT and the 
EIF;  promotion of trade and pr oductive capacity assistance in "One UN Coherence"" pilots; and 
support to UN resident coordinator training.   On  the initial One UN pilot countries, for example, 
work had already been carried out with Cap Verd e, Viet Nam, and Albania, and a programme had 
been developed at the UN Staff college on how to tr ain the UN resident coordinators to include trade 
and productive capacity into country programmes.     
70. Lastly, he referred to the Ministerial meeti ng entitled "How can Aid for Trade Transform 
LDCs?" that UNIDO had convened in Vienna in 2007 and said that, as a result of the 
recommendations made at that meeting on how suppl y-side issues could be addressed in the context 
of LDCs, UNIDO had decided to organize a Minist erial meeting in Cambodia in 2008 which would 
focus particularly on supply side.  Eight pilot countries
1 had been selected for which supply-side 
programmes would be defined using the DTIS as the basic analytical tool and using existing inter-
agency approaches.  The eight pilot countries would first be presented at a technical workshop to be 
held in Kigali in September.  From the WT O side, the STDF would also undertake a parallel 
assessment in these eight countries of what were the SPS constraints they faced.  The 
recommendations coming from the technical workshop  would be taken to the LDC Ministerial in 
Cambodia which would be entitled "Aid for Trade:  An Industrial Agenda for LDCs".  Finally, as a 
follow-up to 2008, UNIDO was also planning to hold a ministerial meeting for LDCs in Vienna in 
2009. 
71. The representative of UNDP  wished to focus on the national and regional reviews and also on 
global monitoring and preparations for the next gl obal review.  He said that UNDP operated on a 
demand-driven basis and responded to requests to assist countries or regional organizations to assess 
or improve their national and regional plans for tr ade capacity development.  In that regard, UNDP 
focused on the whole mainstreaming agenda as well as on the policy context.  It viewed the policy 
context as very important, including areas such as tr ade policy framework, poverty reduction strategy, 
and national development plans and, as others had al so mentioned, believed that in order to avoid a 
shopping-list approach or cherry picking, trade cap acity initiatives needed to be anchored into the 
policy context.  UNDP was also a partner in the Integrated Framework and it was UNDP's 
understanding from the reports of both the Aid-for-T rade Task Force and the Enhanced Integrated 
Framework Task Force that, although sometimes misunderstood, the integrated framework was 
indeed a part of aid for trade.  Specifically UNDP, led by its regional centre in Bratislava, Slovakia, 
was working with several Central Asian countries, and also wi th SACU, and he highlighted that 
UNDP was ensuring that there was no duplication by bringing in the various partners to streamline 
                                                      
1 Benin, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Lesotho, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, and Yemen.  WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
 Page 21 
 
 
  and coordinate support in each of its interventions.  He then em phasized the importance that UNDP 
attached to the CEB Cluster and joint programmi ng initiative and added that UNDP was a coordinator 
of the RCC stamp at country level.  UNDP had also  spear-headed the preparation of a CEB Trade and 
Productive Capacity Cluster Guide on aid for trade wh ich would be a valuable resource tool focussing 
on mainstreaming as well as other issues.  There would be two versions of the Guide, one for 
economies in transition and another global version to  reflect differences a nd to have illustrative 
examples that would be particularly relevant.  He then informed the Co mmittee that UNDP was 
following up with regard to the rescheduling of th e AfT event organized in collaboration with the 
Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. 
72. On global monitoring, as the OECD had already mentioned, together with AITIC and others, 
UNDP was providing support – and would continue to do so – in terms of engaging with partner and 
recipient countries on monitoring and reporting.  On the knowledge networ k, UNDP had been very 
much a part of the discussions in the OECD contex t, drawing from its extensive experience in that 
area and would continue to provide support. 
73. Turning to the 2009 Global Review, UNDP was alre ady carrying out internal consultations on 
how best to report on its activities.  He highlighted that UNDP operated in three areas related to the 
AfT categories:  trade policy and regulations – wh ich included work on mainstreaming and reviewing 
trade capacity development;  trade development; and building productive capacity where AfT work 
was really part of the private sector portfolio th at was a crucial part of UNDP's activities at country 
level.  He concluded by announcin g that UNDP had recently launched the Inclusive Markets Initiative 
that detailed how UNDP was leveraging the private sector  portfolio in support of the effort to reach by 
2015 the Millennium Development Goals.  All existi ng detailed case studies that had been gathered so 
far could be accessed at www.growinginclusivemarkets.org. 
74. The representative of the EBRD  wished to reiterate EBRD's commitment to support the AfT 
initiative bearing in mind its unique and specifi c mandate which was to support market-based 
institutions and the private sector in transition coun tries of the former Soviet Union, South East 
Europe and Central Eastern Eur ope which countries were now EU members.  EBRD was a demand-
based institution and was not an aid institution.  It did not have a specific aid-for-trade strategy but did 
however contribute to support trade in four areas.  One such area was trade financing which, as the 
World Bank and the AsDB had mentioned, was very  important for the private sector.  Since 1999, 
EBRD had provided support to a total of 148 banks in the region with a total of over 6,000 transactions worth over Euros 4 billion.  In 2007 alone EBRD had assisted over 1,000 transactions for 
around Euros 800 million.  As Brazil had mentioned, the impact of the global credit crunch was not 
only being felt in Latin America but also in th e transition countries where for 2008 demand for this 
trade financing product was increasing.  Part of what could be classified as aid was that, in association 
with its trade financing activities, the most critical as pect for EBRD was to ensure that the banks that 
were involved in the programme were strengthening their institutional base to provide trade financing 
even after EBRD had ceased to provide them with fi nancing.  For this purposed, to date, EBRD had 
provided technical assistance to the amount of over Euros 3 million.  Like other regional development 
banks, EBRD had also provided funding to trade-re lated infrastructure and here the key area was 
clearly investment in transport for which it had financed over Euros 5.2 billion for 153 projects.  EBRD was also considering supporting investment of  a regional nature in electricity generators, 
transmission, and distribution in transition co untries where there had been significant under 
investment and where trading had therefore dec lined.  EBRD focused on the private sector and 
provided technical support to enterprises for example to introduce them to new foreign markets and assist them in adopting measures to improve produc t quality that met standards of potential export 
markets.  In this respect, she referred to a two-m onth project carried out by a local consultant whereby 
assistance had been provided to an Albanian textile company to enable it to export its products to 
international markets.  A website had been created for the company that enabled international visitors 
to order and purchase customized products on line a nd that company had now reached the French and 
Dutch markets and was better ta rgeting its regional markets. WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
Page 22  
 
  75. The final pillar of EBRD's trade support was policy dialogue – preferably in cooperation with 
other international institutions – on issues that ha d a direct bearing on international trade.  For 
example, EBRD had recently organized together w ith the FAO a high-level conference on rising food 
prices and exploring the export potential of major f ood exporters in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.   
Since a number of countries that EBRD operated in were not currently members of the WTO, it had 
also been active in promoting a dialogue betw een the business community and authorities on WTO 
accession issues.  EBRD, together with other multilatera l institutions, also participated in the Central 
Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) initiative led by the Asian Development Bank.  As a 
private-sector orientated project bank, the EBRD would continue to focus on supporting trade in the 
context of the provision of trade finance, funding of trade-related infrastructure and provision of 
technical assistance to private enterprise so that th ey could have better access to international markets 
and engage in policy dialogue on tr ade-related issues.  EBRD was al so happy to work with other 
multilateral institutions to assist in the process of  AfT needs assessment in countries where EBRD 
operated.  She said that the EBRD was currently discussing with the UNECE and UNDP how to move forward on this aspect while at the same time coordina ting with other institutions to ensure that efforts 
were not duplicated. 
76. The representative of UNCTAD
 said that since the 2007 Global Review UNCTAD had held 
its UNCTAD XII conference in Accra in April and that the AfT initiative had been emphasized as a 
very important issue in terms of addressing th e opportunities and challenges of globalization by 
developing countries.  Member states had endor sed UNCTAD's role in the AfT initiative and 
UNCTAD would continue to work closely with a ll partner agencies in making sure that AfT was 
realized and operationalized.  This had also been  a key message that had come out in the Accra 
Accord.  UNCTAD would therefore be working in terms of implementing the Accra Accord and particular emphasis would be placed on enhanci ng productive capacities and competitiveness.  
Various instruments were being used to this end, including the UN CEB's Trade and Productive 
Capacity Cluster.  UNCTAD was also coordinating and cooperating in terms of UN agencies focusing 
their role in bringing about AfT in the area of supply capacity building.  Here, UNCTAD was working 
with the UN agencies, the UN regional commissions, UNDP, UNEP and the United Nations University to produce a major publication that woul d be released in 2008 on  AfT in terms of global 
and regional perspectives to highlight some of the regional perspectives in the different regions.  An 
advance copy of the publication had been made  available at the UNCTAD XII meeting and it was 
hoped that it would provide some further insights in terms of continuous information dissemination 
and awareness building on AfT, especially as far as mainstreaming trade into national development 
strategies was concerned.  Mainst reaming development into trade stra tegies was equally important in 
ensuring that the promotion of trade as an instru ment of development and aid for trade could be 
advanced.  UNCTAD was also a member of the WTO AfT Advisory Group and would continue to 
contribute and work with the WTO in that capacity.  UNCTAD's own technical cooperation 
programme would be reformulated  and would move towards a them atic clustering focusing on key 
development areas in which UNCTAD could provide expertise so that the impact in terms of 
development could be enhanced.  These areas were commodities, investment, trade facilitation, trade 
analysis, enterprise development, and science and technology.  This, in UNCTAD's view, was the 
objective behind the AfT initiative, i.e., to bring development to developing countries, especially 
African countries, least-developed countries and those countries in special need.   In conclusion he 
wished to underscore that UNCTAD was trying to see how together the partner agencies – including 
WTO, UNIDO, UNDP, UNEP, and others – could enhance the AfT initiative. 
77. The Committee took note
 of the statements. 
2. Preparations for the Expert Symposium on  Evaluation:  Identifying Indicators for 
Monitoring Aid for Trade 
78. The representative of the Secretariat  informed the Committee that the Expert Symposium on 
Evaluation:  Identifying Indicators for Monitoring Aid for Trade was scheduled for 15-16 September.   WT/COMTD/AFT/M/7 
 Page 23 
 
 
  A draft agenda had been made available in the room from which it could be seen that a two-day 
meeting with four sessions had been planned.  He stressed that the Symposium would be an informal meeting and that all WTO Members and observers, as well agencies and perhaps some selected NGOs, would be invited to participate and to provide the Secretariat with their expertise in the area of 
monitoring.  The aim was to identify the best indicat ors that could be used in the WTO for monitoring 
AfT trends and themes for the purposes of the Global Re view in 2009.  The intention was not to try to 
adopt indicators but to arrive at some kind of  broad understanding or agreement on a toolbox of 
indicators that would be used to help ensure th at the 2009 Global Review was well structured and 
informative.  The idea would be to keep the i ndicators focused on the WTO mandate on AfT.  As 
delegations were no doubt aware, there were other international conferences taking place, for 
example, the Accra Conference on the Paris Decl aration, a Doha meeting on financing for 
development, where other aspects either of aid in general or of AfT in one or more of its aspects 
would be monitored.  However, the Symposium in  September would focus on the Global Review that 
would take place in the General Council in May or  June of 2009.  A background document for the 
meeting was being prepared and would be distribu ted in September.  It was hoped that the paper 
would encourage discussion at the Symposium and dele gations were invited and encouraged to make 
written contributions before the Symposium.  Lead speakers for the different sessions of the 
Symposium were also being identified and volunteer s, particularly from the developing-country side, 
were requested to contact the Secretariat. 
79. The Committee took note
 of the statement. 
C. REPORTS ON THE OUTCOMES OF RECENT STANDARDS AND TRADE DEVELOPMENT FACILITY 
(STDF)  EVENTS HELD IN CAMBODIA , UGANDA , AND GUATEMALA  
80. Due to time constraints, the Committee agreed to revert to this item at its next meeting. 
D. OTHER BUSINESS  
81. There were no items raised under "Other Business". 
82. The meeting was adjourned . 
__________