Donor governments are increasingly providing funding to help developing economies trade more effectively. Some, in fact, have integrated development into their foreign affairs and trade arms, like Canada and more recently Australia.
Aid for trade, according to former World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy, has proven to not only improve trade performance of developing countries — but also people’s lives, particularly women.
“Trade works for development,” Lamy told Devex President and Editor-in-chief Raj Kumar during the European Development Days 2013 in Brussels. “But it doesn’t work for development automatically.”
Lamy noted that challenges impeding the capacity of developing countries to trade need to be addressed, and these typically have to do with logistics and infrastructure. He believes one day there will be a multilateral body on trade facilitation that will tackle what he calls “frontier bottlenecks.”
Click the above video for more of our interview with Lamy, known to many as the father of AfT, as it was during his tenure at WTO when the initiative was born.
Devex was at the European Development Days 2013. Check out our coverage of Europe’s leading global development event of the year.
About the author
Eliza Villarino
Eliza Villarino currently manages one of today’s leading publications on humanitarian aid, global health and international development, the weekly GDB. At Devex, she has helped grow a global newsroom, with talented journalists from major development hubs such as Washington, D.C, London and Brussels. She regularly writes about innovations in global development.