Thursday, May 26, 2016

A WTO/World Bank Forum on trade and poverty, partly organized by the WTO Chairs Programme, took place at the WTO on 26 May 2016. The forum, whose theme was “Connecting to trade: policies and programmes for maximizing poverty reduction impact”, was opened by Bridget Chilala, Director of the WTO’s Institute of Training and Technical Cooperation, and Anabel González, Senior Director of Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice at the World Bank.

The forum was part of the WTO/World Bank work programme on trade and poverty and follows on from the release of their joint report on The Role of Trade in Ending Poverty in June 2015. The programme involves research into how trade policy can increase the welfare of the bottom 40 per cent and how trade facilitation and the implementation of the WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement can help to reduce poverty. Mainstreaming trade into national development strategies and the role of the WTO and policy makers in facilitating this process are also the focus of this programme. The participation of members of the WTO Chairs Programme in the forum helps to increase the visibility of their research and to facilitate interaction between policy makers, trade practitioners and academics.
Research papers examining the link between trade growth and poverty alleviation were presented by three members of the Chairs Programme, with the aim of showcasing new research and providing new perspectives on the 2030 goal of eradicating all forms of poverty. The WTO Chair from Benin presented a paper on how trade opening affects poverty reduction, both for the urban and rural populations, and on how to make trade inclusive in national development strategy plans.
The research presented by the Chair from Jordan focused on the macroeconomic link between trade and growth and on how trade could help to reduce poverty. The WTO Chair from Tunisia provided an in-depth analysis of the effects of Tunisian trade policy on household welfare. The presentation analysed the distributional effects of trade policy at the micro level, using the results of a household survey.
This WTO chairs session was chaired by Elsbeth Akkerman, Minister and Deputy Permanent Representative of the Netherlands to the WTO.
More information about the forum and the WTO chairs session can be found here.