Mainstreaming Trade –Concept and Applications
2.3 Findings from the country reports and other analyses The 14 country reports reviewed the effectiveness of the three levels of mainstreaming. The reports document the main challenges and lessons learned, good practices and successes and areas for improvement.
2.3.1 Setting the vision, strategic goals and priorities The main policy-level challenges noted in the country reports are awareness-building, coherence, analysis and inclusiveness. Trade’s contribution to development continues to be seen primarily in the context of economic growth. The premise is that trade expansion will engender economic growth, which in turn will automatically deliver development benefits for all. This underscores the need to sensitize stakeholders to the complex relationships among trade, growth and human development and the need to strategically use trade to achieve development objectives. Most of the countries report that visibility and awareness of trade has increased in recent years, due to WTO accession and Trade Policy Reviews, Doha negotiations, UNCTAD Investment Policy Reviews, the EIF, the Aid for Trade initiative and the proliferation of regional and bilateral trade arrangements. All country reports give ample examples of trade-related objectives and activities being integrated into national and sectoral plans and PRSPs. Some of the more recent PRSPs and national plans mention trade more frequently. In fact, several of these plans incorporate trade strategically (e.g., Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Central African Republic, Lesotho, Rwanda, Yemen). In a number of cases, the Integrated Framework — now the Enhanced Integrated Framework, or EIF — has played an important role in achieving integration through diagnostic studies, DTIS action matrices and raising the profile of trade in government. A UNDP report11 reviewing 72 PRSPs concludes that recent PRSPs mention trade more explicitly and refer to trade-poverty reduction links. Nevertheless, there is a long way to go. The report states that “while a few PRSPs conceptualize trade as both a cause and a beneficiary of poverty reduction, the vast majority see the connections between trade and poverty with narrow and vague focus. The direct connections between trade and poverty reduction, including efforts to spread the benefits of trade widely, are considered in passing, if at all, as are the investments in human development that might complement a liberal trade policy”.
11 UNDP. Trade for Poverty Reduction: The Role of Trade Policy in Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, 2008.
24 Trade And Human Development: A Practical Guide To Mainstreaming Trade