While free trade agreements and other intermediary trade agreements allow emerging nations increased access to markets, many low- and middle-income countries lack the capacity required to meet global standards. Deficiencies in quality of product, speed of transport, or quality of regulation can prevent countries from reaping the benefits of trade agreements, particularly with the United States. This report of the CSIS Congressional Task Force on Trade Capacity Building—cochaired by Representatives Charles Boustany (R-LA) and Jared Polis (D-CO)—focuses on how projects to build trade capacity can be planned and coordinated to maximize the benefits of new trade agreements, both for the United States and its partners.
These Guidelines help developing countries enhance their capacity to trade and participate more effectively in the international rule-making and institutional mechanisms that shape the global trading system. They also provide a common reference point for the trade, aid and finance comunities.
Justifying traditional U.S. assistance to middle-income countries is an increasingly difficult proposition, and refocusing limited U.S. government development resources away from middle-income countries offers an efficient way to identify savings in the foreign assistance budget. This is not the first time that the U.S. government has faced such questions, and it can draw upon past transitions, not all successful, for a variety of valuable lessons for repurposing the United States' relationship with middle-income countries. This report begins with a brief introductory chapter on the main issues and themes. Chapter 2 considers the experiences of South Korea, Lithuania, Costa Rica, Portugal, and Tunisia as case studies of countries with relatively successful U.S. assistance transitions. Chapter 3 examines Brazil, India, Russia, and Panama, four middle-income countries with which the United States can shift its assistance relationship toward a focus on bilateral trade and cooperation interests. Chapter 4 offers nine specific recommendations for shifting the United States' relationships with middle-income countries from assistance to true partnerships. Chapter 5 concludes. This report and its recommendations are the product of extensive conversations with members of the development and diplomatic communities in the United States and in Brazil, India, Russia, and Panama. More than 200 individuals were consulted through working group discussions, personal meetings, and telephone interviews, all on a not-for-attribution basis. Apart from a few development implementers, no one suggested that the United States should maintain the status quo with respect to its assistance programs in these countries. The overwhelming consensus was that the United States is using inadequate instruments in a changing context, and that it should broaden its bilateral relationships with middle-income countries to reflect mutual interests. These areas of interest are numerous, but in every case include cooperation on strengthening civil society, science and technology, 'triangular' cooperation, people-to-people exchanges, and expanded trade. This set of transitions does not imply a larger budget funded by taxpayer money because the vast majority of new bilateral initiatives would not be inherently governmental functions and could be entrusted to nongovernmental entities.
The almost 300 case stories in this book show clear results of how aid-for-trade programmes are helping developing countries to build human, institutional and infrastructure capacity to integrate into regional and global markets and to make good use of trade opportunities.
The Community Adjustment and Investment Program's management structure hinders efficient program management. The program is managed in Washington, D.C., by a high-level interagency group chaired by the Treasury Department, called the Finance Committee. Committee membership includes the Departments of Agriculture; Commerce; Housing and Urban Development; and Labor; and the Small Business Administration. It took the Finance Committee over 3 years to set up program guidelines and to start disbursing program financing to distressed counties. The Finance Committee's retention of certain day-to-day managerial functions is inefficient and has added more time to the decision-making process, particularly for direct loans and grants. This report makes several recommendations to the Secretary of the Treasury to improve program management by delegating authority from the Finance Committee, amending eligibility data procedures, improving notification to eligible counties, and establishing a monitoring system to measure program outcomes.
Developing countries want to join in the globalisation process. However, the increasing complexity of global markets, the new challenges of the multilateral trading system and the competing demands of regional, bilateral and multilateral trade agreemen
The Community Adjustment and Investment Program's management structure hinders efficient program management. The program is managed in Washington, D.C., by a high-level interagency group chaired by the Treasury Department, called the Finance Committee. Committee membership includes the Departments of Agriculture; Commerce; Housing and Urban Development; and Labor; and the Small Business Administration. It took the Finance Committee over 3 years to set up program guidelines and to start disbursing program financing to distressed counties. The Finance Committee's retention of certain day-to-day managerial functions is inefficient and has added more time to the decision-making process, particularly for direct loans and grants. This report makes several recommendations to the Secretary of the Treasury to improve program management by delegating authority from the Finance Committee, amending eligibility data procedures, improving notification to eligible counties, and establishing a monitoring system to measure program outcomes.
The Role of Trade in Ending Poverty looks at the complex relationships between economic growth, poverty reduction and trade, and examines the challenges that poor people face in benefiting from trade opportunities. Written jointly by the World Bank Group and the WTO, the publication examines how trade could make a greater contribution to ending poverty by increasing efforts to lower trade costs, improve the enabling environment, implement trade policy in conjunction with other areas of policy, better manage risks faced by the poor, and improve data used for policy-making.
