Launching the Aid for Trade Process in SPECA (Joint Initiative on Aid for Trade Road Map for SPECA)

Transcription

1 Multi-year Expert Meeting on Commodities and Development Palais des Nations, Geneva, March 2010 Launching the Aid for Trade Process in SPECA (Joint Initiative on Aid for Trade Road Map for SPECA) By Mr Khalil Alakbarov Head of Department of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Azerbaijan "The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNCTAD" 1

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3 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Multi-year Expert Meeting on Commodities and Development Geneva, March 2010 Paper Mr Khalil Alakbarov Head of Department of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Azerbaijan Launching the Aid for Trade Process in SPECA (Joint Initiative on Aid for Trade Road Map for SPECA) Background 1. Assistance and capacity building to support the participation of low and middle income countries in trade has long been a priority for the international community and has gained momentum during the Doha Development Round. The WTO Hong Kong Ministerial Conference of December 2005 called for Aid for Trade (AfT) as an initiative to reinforce commitments by donors to give more and by beneficiaries to include more trade related projects in their development planning. The AfT initiative includes acceding countries as well as WTO members. 2. The role of the WTO as an institution, in collaboration with the OECD, is to monitor the progress and effectiveness of the AfT initiative. The WTO sees its monitoring role as identifying: current flows of aid for trade; existing gaps; and improvements that need to be made. Then, through the analysis of these three areas, creating incentives to improve the situation by shining a spotlight on the issues. 1 However, for the actual implementation of the initiative (as opposed to the monitoring), the WTO counts about a network of partners including global and regional development banks, UNDP and the UN regional commissions. 3. During 2007, Aid-for-Trade was primarily a political process looking to obtain high level support for funding, trade policy reform and the inclusion of trade in national development plans. The next stage, which began in 2008, consists of meetings to review national and sub-regional plans and priorities as well as the identification of financing for priority areas where funding is inadequate. 1 WTO monitoring is currently structured in three parts: i. Analysis of quantitative information from the OECD database. ii. Donor self assessments (all except Japan, being ECE member States) iii. Beneficiary-country assessments (no reports from ECE countries so far) 3

4 4. The low and middle income countries in Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, including all those participating in the United Nations Special Program for Central Asia (SPECA) 2 have been largely left out of this process up until now. If these countries are not included either in the political process or the following more hands on processes, they may not have the same incentives and support for developing national plans to support their participation in international trade and may receive less donor attention and, thus, less ODA assistance in this area. 5. At the Consultative Meeting on Doha Development Agenda organized by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) for Geneva based Permanent Missions of the member-states of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) on 11 December 2007 in Geneva, the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Geneva initiated discussions on Aid for Trade for member-countries of the UN Special Program for Economies of Central Asia (SPECA). This initiative got initial support from IDB representative and H.E. Ms. Valentine Rugwabiza, WTO Deputy Director General. 6. Furthermore to generate the needed political attention and momentum on AfT in the SPECA region, the Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan in consultation with other SPECA members Geneva based diplomats and the Permanent Mission of Kyrgyzstan approached UNDP with a request to initiate a larger consultation process with others agencies/development partners having similar concerns including ITC, UNCTAD, UNIDO, WTO, OECD and also some regional development banks interest in supporting this process, especially the Islamic Development Bank / Islamic Trade Finance Corporation, as well as with parent organizations of the SPECA - UNECE and UNESCAP. 7. Recognizing the limited attention provided to this region in the context of the AfT initiative, in late 2007 UNDP already started to undertake pilot AfT needs assessment exercise in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. 8. Coming out of these consultations was a consensus that: a) Due to the fact that all SPECA member-states are landlocked developing countries with economies in transition 3 and most of them are acceding countries to the WTO and therefore adjustment costs for these countries are relatively high, an AfT program should be realized for SPECA countries. b) This will require identification of concrete Aid for Trade priorities at a national and sub-regional level for SPECA member-states. Project Description: Aid for Trade SPECA Ministerial 8. The objectives of the project are to: a) Call to the attention of high-level politicians in the SPECA countries the importance of trade for their development; b) Identify country and region level priorities for trade development; c) Call the attention of donors to these priorities. 2 SPECA is a Program jointly supported by the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and members of this program are:afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan 3 Afghanistan being exception is LDC 4

5 9. The principal project outputs from the Ministerial level meeting would be: a) A negotiated statement providing regional input to the WTO Aid for Trade initiative b) Statements from participating countries on their country-level priorities for trade-related development with commitments to reflect these in national development plans. c) Agreed upon sub-regional level priorities for trade development and suggested framework(s) for undertaking this sub-regional work in order to ensure its funding and implementation. 10. The intermediate steps/outputs required a) Workshop to prepare experts and countries for the preparation of the needs assessments in order to ensure a uniform approach. b) Needs assessments for the SPECA countries that include discussions at a national-level to identify trade development priorities c) Completion by all SPECA countries of the OECD Aid for Trade questionnaire for beneficiary countries d) The identification of trade development needs that are common across two or more countries and, based on these, the identification of potential sub-regional trade development priorities e) The development of one or more frameworks for the coordination of work on subregional trade development priorities by the SPECA Trade Working Group in cooperation with the UNDP regional office, the UNECE and UNESCAP Proposed Project Responsibilities (to be confirmed/discussed) a) UNDP organization and management of the funding b) UNECE and UNESCAP - Organization of consultations with country missions in Geneva and Bangkok, in order to explain to them the project and encourage full participation of countries in the technical work. c) UNDP organization and supervision of the assessment studies as well as the sub-regional assessment. d) UNECE/UNESCAP and ITC review and provide input to the national assessment studies and the sub-regional assessment of common trade development needs. e) UNDP, in coordination with UNECE and UNESCAP, organization of the workshop and the ministerial f) UNECE/UNESCAP coordination of the input from the SPECA Trade Working Group g) ITC and UNECE - Coordination of input from UN agencies through the CEB Trade and Productive Capacities Cluster to the assessment workshop and the Ministerial Meeting. h) OECD, UNECE and UNESCAP completion of the OECD Aid for Trade questionnaire for beneficiary countries by all SPECA countries (UNECE to cover all countries except Afghanistan which will be handled by UNESCAP) i) UNECE, UNESCAP and UNDP organization of the negotiations and elaboration of the ministerial statement on sub-regional priorities and frameworks for their implementation 5

6 j) AZERBAIJANI government and UNDP Office in Azerbaijan, organization of local arrangements for the ministerial, k) KYRGYZ government and UNDP Office in Kyrgyzstan, organization of local arrangements for the assessment workshop l) SPECA governments, identification of diplomats and experts, active participation in the assessments, negotiations and ministerial. Timeframes: June 2009 July - October 2009 June - October 2009 November 2009 March 2010 July 2010 Workshop on Aid for Trade Needs Assessment in the SPECA countries Purpose: to discuss and plan for country-specific and Aid for Trade needs assessment exercises using a common template to facilitate the analysis. Place: Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan Target audience: experts from trade, development and finance ministries and the private sector of SPECA member states; the consultants charged with carrying out the national assessment studies; and trade diplomats, including Geneva based diplomats. Output: Initiation of a uniform process leading to national needs assessments. Needs assessments undertaken for each SPECA member State and at the sub-regional level Negotiation process leading towards a statement for the Ministerial Conference on Aid for Trade in the SPECA region. Sub-Regional analysis and of the needs assessment exercise. Sub-regional Ministerial Review Meeting on Aid for Trade in the SPECA member states Place: Baku, Azerbaijan Purpose: to review the needs assessments and adopt a common strategy for resource mobilization. Output: Ministerial Statement on a common strategy Workshop on Aid-For-Trade Needs assessment in the SPECA countries Place: Bishkek Regional Review of Aid for Trade for SPECA countries Place: Baku 6