Listed as a priority in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, aid for trade, according to the resulting document from the third International Conference on Financing for Development, “can play a major role” in mobilizing international trade for development, especially in least-developed countries.
Trade, a note from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Trade Organization clarified, is “not a ‘sector’ — it covers a wide range of activities and encompasses not just goods, but also services.”
Aid for trade has a similarly wide-ranging scope. OECD divides the areas to which aid for trade is directed into several broad sectors: transport and storage, communication, energy, banking and financial services, business and other services, agriculture, forestry, fishing, industry, mineral resources, trade policies and regulations, and tourism.