MAKING GLOBAL TRADE WORK FOR PEOPLE

A UNDP study prepared by an international team of experts, with support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation and UNDP, joined by the Ford Foundation, the Heinrich Boell Foundation and the Wallace Global Fund.

The study is an independent reassessment of the current system of global trade and looks at ways that it can be improved to contribute more effectively to human development. Although trade has enormous potential to contribute to human development, say the authors, the current trade regime has fallen far short of expectations and its inequities are at the core of controversies surrounding globalisation. It examines these issues and presents perspectives from developing countries, civil society organisations from bot h North and South, and academics and experts that have not been widely heard.

The book addresses a range of critical questions, such as whether a developing countrys autonomy can be preserved while respecting legitimate objectives of advanced industrialised countries to maintain high labour, social and economic standards at home.

It also examines in detail the workings of the trade system under the World Trade Organisation, tracing its origins from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and analysing how it can work better for developing countries and contribute to global efforts to reduce poverty.

Perhaps the most important overall message is that the current trade regime needs to shift its focus from promoting liberalisation and market access to providing developing countries with policy space. This will give them the flexibility they need to make institutional and other innovations, while still recognising that trade liberalisation and market access can make important contributions to human development in specific situations and certain sectors.

[ pdf; 371 pages ]