Regional Seminar on the EU-Pacific Economic Partnership Agreement Divine Word University, Madang, 28 29 April 2008 The EU Aid for Trade (AfT) Policy Norbert Probst Unit E1 Relations with the Pacific DG Development and Relations with ACP States
Overview of the presentation What is Aid for Trade (AfT)? Why AfT? The EU commitment on AfT The EU AfT Strategy Implementation and Follow-up to the Strategy The Monitoring Report 2008: EU AfT 2001 2006 Prospects of AfT for the Pacific
What is Aid for Trade (AfT)? The 6 categories (WTO Task Force on AfT, 2006): The classical "Trade Related Assistance" (TRA): Trade policy and regulations Trade development Wider AfT agenda: TRA together with Trade related infrastructure Building productive capacity Trade related adjustment Other trade related needs
Why AfT? Increasing recognition of need to address more effectively the productive and trade related capacity constraints, in particular of poorest developing countries; Aid and trade as twin pillars of EU development policy (EU Treaty 1995, European Consensus for Development 2005).
The EU commitment on AfT Gleneagles G8 Summit 2005 + WTO Ministerial Conference Hong Kong 2005: 2 billion per year in TRA by 2010; Putting its Hong Kong commitments into operation: adoption of a joint EU Aid for Trade Strategy in October 2007.
The EU AfT Strategy (1) Rationale and key principles: AfT to be provided to all developing countries, but particularly to the poorest; AfT as an element of broader development policies to reach MDGs and overarching objective of poverty reduction; AfT as a complement of trade negotiations (DDA, EPAs), but not dependent on their outcome; AfT based on Paris principles on aid effectiveness and EU Code of Conduct on complementarity and division of labour in development policy.
The EU AfT Strategy (2) The 5 pillars of the Strategy: Quantitative ambitions for TRA and wider AfT; Enhancing pro-poor focus and quality; Increasing EU capacity to deliver; Specific ACP angle, esp. regarding support to ACP regional integration processes (about 50% of planned TRA increase available for ACP needs); Monitoring, reporting and review, esp. with a view to avoiding "AfT orphans".
Implementation and Follow-up to the Strategy Implementation matrix and definition of indicators for measuring progress; AfT monitoring reports (WTO Global AfT reviews, reporting on Monterrey commitments); Efforts to take the 50% ACP commitment further: mapping EU AfT to different ACP regions, "regional packages".
The Monitoring Report 2008: EU AfT 2001 2006 (1) AfT agenda finding its way into EU development cooperation; aid increases in all categories; Geographical distribution of AfT: ACP with largest share (42%)
The Monitoring Report 2008: EU AfT 2001 2006 (2) EU AfT 2001-2006: Geographical distribution
The Monitoring Report 2008: EU AfT 2001 2006 (3) Pacific: low aid volume ( 160 million 0.6% of total), no clear trend; main beneficiaries for TRA: Samoa, Fiji, Timor-Leste, Vanuatu and PNG; Difficult to give aid forecasts by region in coming years but overall intentions to increase.
Prospects of AfT for the Pacific AfT is demand driven (ownership principle); EU engagement as a reflection of policy choices (intraregional and bilateral trade liberalisation agendas) and programming decisions at country and regional levels; Programming of NIPs and RIPs 10th EDF; discussion within EU about "regional packages"; Importance of regionally owned financing mechanisms as a tool for channeling AfT funds.
Thank you! For further information please consult http://ec.europa.eu/development/index_en.cfm http://ec.europa.eu/trade/index_en.htm