Report: Aid for Trade: Making it Effective

The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development released this 90 page report on Aid For Trade. After looking for more information on the Doha Development Rounds (DDR) I came across this study. “Aid for Trade: Making it Effective” is available in a PDF through google books as well as any online book retailer.

Some background on Doha and the report:
The Doha Rounds started in 2001 with the WTO trying to place more interest and money into pulling developing nations into the multilateral trading system. Issues in human resources, institutions, and supply-side capacity needs became part of the rounds, and in 2005, the Hong Kong WTO Ministerial Declaration created a task force to help make Aid for Trade a more interactive policy. The WTO asked the OECD to help with the task force and to grapple with three issues:

1.How much do donors already provide in support of trade
2.How effective are these programs
3.How to make Aid for Trade an effective tool for helping developing nations (specifically LDC) to fully benefit from trade liberalization and WTO agreements

Executive Summary Recap:“This paper argues that most of the activities necessary to address adjustment…are already included in the three categories proposed other adjustment-related expenditure such as social safety nets, balance of payments support or compensation for potential costs from multilateral liberalization... Rather, it notes that international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the IMP have been supporting developing countries’ adjustment effects from a host of factors…and will continue to do so…In this regard, countries experiencing…severe preference erosion may require special attention.”
There’s been a significant amount of money invested in related programs, but building trade systems takes time and is country specific. This report seems to also advocate for local ownership as well as a way to review government effectiveness. The author comes up with a good graph of this (figure 3) which shows how local accountability pacts and the creation of a Global Review Mechanism would serve to help with oversight.