Trade at the Service of Poverty
Still More Work to be Done
“More work needs to be done to incorporate poverty perspectives into trade policy discussions, such as those currently taking place at the WTO”. This was the overwhelming sentiment expressed by academics, UK policy-makers and NGOs who attended CUTS LRC’s 31st May conference: “Emerging Trends in Trade, Development and Poverty (TDP) Linkages: Implications for the Doha Round”.
The conference brought together academics from the leading international development research institutions in the UK to share recent research on trade and poverty linkages in the fisheries and textiles sector. Case studies from the TDP project were presented by Josaphat Kweka from the Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF) in Tanzania, a partner in the TDP project. His research highlighted the key factors that face producers in the fisheries and textiles sector, including lack of infrastructure, the erosion of trade preferences and inadequate policy responses to the process of globalisation.
Other presenters included John Thoburn from University of East Anglia (UEA), Jeff Readman from Centre for Research in Innovation Management (CENTRIM) and Ulrich Kleih from the Natural Resources Institute, who all provided additional perspectives on TDP linkages in these sectors from recent field research they have been involved with. They were joined by representatives from Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Department for International Development (DFID) in the final session, during which discussions took place on the implications of the research presented for the ongoing Doha Round of WTO negotiations. This session emphasised the importance of aid in building trade capacity, flexibilities for developing countries in the negotiations and efforts to institutionalise a poverty perspective more effectively into the functioning of the WTO.
Full reports and presentations can be found on the TDP project page.
This event is being organised as a part of CUTS’ project “Linkages between trade, development and poverty reduction (TDP)”. Through research, dialogue and advocacy, this project aims to gather further insights into TDP linkages at the grass-roots level and improve coherence between trade policy and efforts aimed at development and poverty reduction. This project is supported by DFID and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and is being implemented in 13 developing countries in South Asia and Southern and Eastern Africa.
