• Wednesday, July 20, 2011
• Inter Press Service

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Tuesday appealed to the international community to maintain resources for the Aid for Trade programme, especially those assigned to the least developed countries LDCs). He made his plea in a speech relating to the Third Global Review of Aid for Trade.

Ban recognized the efforts made by member states to mobilize donations for development assistance, but the global financial crisis and subsequent budget cuts in many countries have affected the annual rate of increase of Aid for Trade. He called, at least, to maintain the present level of aid.

'Aid for Trade reflects the international community’s commitment to help developing countries participate actively in the world economy and to ensure that these countries can also gain from world growth,' Ban said in Geneva on Tuesday.

Aid for Trade is a program started by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2005 to help poor countries to accelerate their development through the implementation of trade-related skills and proper infrastructure, in order to benefit from WTO agreements. It also promotes food and nutrition security and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

Today Aid for Trade accounts for as much as one-third of official development assistance, but the Secretary General remarked that other forms of assistance should not be left behind in the efforts of the international community to build self sufficiency for every country in the world.

The Global Review of Aid for Trade, which began Monday, will evaluate the achievements of the Aid for Trade initiative since its launch in Hong Kong in 2005. The debate is an opportunity to reunite officials from the WTO, the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and privates.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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