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In the light of the upcoming 2005 ministerial meeting of the Doha round, this issue of id21 insights examines what developed and developing countries can do to generate the highest payoffs from trade agreements. It is suggested that improving market access, which includes removing barriers that impede developing countries' ability to export goods and services should be the highest priority, complemented with expanded 'aid for trade'.

The article concludes that global trade reform, in itself, is not enough to ensure positive outcomes for everyone. For developing countries to benefit from the reforms, several steps are needed:

• governments have to set up mechanisms to be able to assist groups who may lose from trade reforms and be prepared to remove policy or infrastructure constraints for private investment and employment creation
• current preference-granting countries can offer other forms of support to compensate for the losses from preference erosion; and global losses from potential preference erosion will be less than the expected global net gains from bold trade reforms
• larger gains from reforms are conditional on new employment opportunities, higher wages and a shift from subsistence agriculture; complementary reforms and investments are needed to stimulate the desired supply response to new opportunities
• governments need to assess what the costs and benefits of any WTO agreements are; this is complex and the solution probably involves a mix of differential treatment to developing countries to allow flexibility and aid to help implementation of WTO obligations
• to realise the development promise of trade agreements, developed-developing country arrangements such as the EU's EPAs should address national priorities to achieve development objectives.

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