Aid for Trade has reached a new record amount in 2022
Published: Wednesday, Jun 26th 2024, 11:40
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For many development experts, participation in global trade is the key to poor countries finding ways out of poverty. "Aid for Trade", which supports poorer countries in building good trade structures, reached a record amount of 51.1 billion dollars in 2022.
This was stated by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in a report published in Geneva on Wednesday. After Japan, the World Bank and the EU, Germany was the fourth-largest donor of such aid in 2022, as in the previous year, ahead of France, the USA and others.
However, challenges remain, according to the report. The poorest countries benefit less than emerging countries. A total of around 648 billion dollars has been invested since the start of the Aid for Trade initiative in 2006 and up to 2022. The programs are very different: some support start-ups in poorer countries, offer training or new technologies so that countries can export not raw materials, but products created from them with a higher value.
According to the report, poorer countries need support above all to strengthen their trade in goods and infrastructure despite the challenges posed by the climate crisis. Digitalization must also be promoted more strongly so that the potential of e-commerce can be exploited and poorer countries are not left behind. In view of tight budgets in many countries, the WTO and OECD want to involve the private sector more in development work.
The WTO and OECD still see untapped potential in tourism. In 2022, only 287 million dollars from aid-for-trade programs were invested in this area, a negligible amount. 4.5 billion dollars were invested in sustainable energy production.
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