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Loosen aid strings, VP tells trade forum
2007-10-02 10:17:21
By Austin Beyadi
Vice President Ali Mohamed Shein has said that financial resources for Aid-For-Trade should not be tied to too many conditions and should be provided in grant form.
The Vice President was addressing a high level forum on Mobilizing Aid for Trade which is focusing on Africa, and is aimed at empowering developing countries to take advantage of trade openings and to connect with the global economy.
Aid for trade financial resources should also be additional rather than being reallocated or packaged from other existing programmes, said Dr Shein.
Dr Shein said financial resources provided for aid for trade should be demand-driven and that this should require direct communication between donors and the recipient countries.
He said aid for trade should be free of the weaknesses of the traditional forms of aid and that it should be designed and operated to expand the scope of trade-related technical assistance.
He said for aid-for-trade to be effective, Africa and other developing countries should create the necessary conducive business environment to facilitate growth and development of private sector activities.
He said the majority of non-oil and non-mineral exporting countries had very little to export to the rest of the world.
He said that formal market access alone did not necessarily translate into export and income growth for the developing countries.
However, the Director General of the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy, said that the global economy was fundamentally changing the development dynamics by creating huge potential for developing countries to harness trade as an engine of growth.
``But to seize this opportunity, they need the capacity to export successfully and to connect to the global market place,`` he said.
He said that Aid for Africa was about providing a catalyst for increased trade investment and growth and that it was also an important complement to a fairer trading balance.
He said the forum broke new grounds in bringing together key actors to focus on mobilizing increased and effective financing for building trade capacity and infrastructure across the region.
The President of the African Development Bank, Donald Kaberuka, said Africa was experiencing the highest economic growth with averaging GDP growth of 5 percent and that the number was forecast to increase to 6 percent this year.
He said that the ADB was working with its member countries to ensure mainstreaming of trade in a country strategy paper intended to promote trade as well as foster integration.
The World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who was speaking on a video phone, reminded the G8 nations to fulfill their pledges of increasing donor support to African countries.
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