Aid for trade and public-private partnerships

This paper explores the need for and rationale behind Aid for Trade (AfT) in the Asian and Pacific region. It looks at the role of the United Nations, in particular that of regional commissions and explores various modalities for AfT by governments, international organisations, business and, in particular, public-private partnerships.

The authors argue that AfT has achieved increased attention particularly since the Ministerial Declaration of the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It made explicit reference to the need for aid to countries to increase their capacity to implement WTO agreements as well as to build their supply-side responses so that they can facilitate trade and benefit from enhanced market access.

Key points highlighted include:

• given the multidisciplinary nature of trade facilitation and the involvement of a large number of stakeholders from the public and private sectors, the benefits of trade facilitation can be maximised if it is undertaken based on public-private partnerships
• while there appears to be consensus that AfT is important, an emerging issue is to identify those recipient countries that should receive priority. In this context, Asia and the Pacific so far has not figured prominently
• there is a strong argument that a similar programme to Africa’s Joint Integrated Technical Assistance Programme (JITAP) should be developed for Asia and the Pacific as well