The Director of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Pascal Lamy, told the Third Global Review of Aid for Trade (July 18-19) in Geneva that there has been a 60% increase in global trade commitments since the process was launched in 2005.   

The Aid for Trade process was designed to help developing countries increase exports of goods and services, to integrate into the multilateral trading system and to benefit from the world trade liberalization accord known as the Doha round, currently under negotiation.

Lamy called the two-day review “an encouraging account of how we are building trade capacity, not just for the short or medium-term, but importantly for the long-term.”  

He stressed the important role that business could play, saying that “getting the private sector on-board also means understanding that in reality Aid for Trade is as much the need to generate Investments for Trade.”  He said that business is what will ensure that development projects actually develop trade that will continue in the long term. 

The WTO report on Aid for Trade shows that Sub-Saharan Africa has received the largest share of total aid among all regions, with a $13 billion increase in 2009 while commitments to the Americas registered a $3 billion increase.

The report noted that despite the world financial crisis, donor states and multilateral partners managed to keep aid growing at a steady pace and thus a stable outlook for future aid for trade could be foreseen.

In his address to the conference, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged trade negotiators and diplomats to keep their aid commitments to poorer nations despite pressure on state budgets, saying that lifting people out of poverty and environmental issues will be his top priorities as he goes into his second term as UN chief.

“If you look at these goals, they are all very closely interconnected. That is what I’m really going to focus on, what I’m particularly going to focus on, for (the next) five years. The UN General Assembly unanimously elected Ban to a second term in June.