From left to right – OECD Representative, Coralie Martin; Ambassador Matthew Wilson; Director General for Economics, Climate and Global Issues at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, UK, Jenny Bates; WTO Deputy Director General, Zhang Xiangchen; Ambassador of Nepal and Chair of the Committee on Trade and Development, Ram Prasad Subedi; Ambassador James Baxter of Australia; and the Pacific Islands Forum Representative, at the WTO ‘Aid for Trade’ event. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade)
Barbados has highlighted the need for a recommitment to Aid for Trade and development assistance, at the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) event on Aid for Trade: Developing Trade for Shared Prosperity, held on Tuesday, March 25.
Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Barbados to the United Nations, World Trade Organization and other International Organizations in Geneva, Matthew Wilson, joined a high-level panel at the WTO to address “Developing Trade for Shared Prosperity”.
The panellists came from the United Kingdom, Australia, the Pacific Islands Forum, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
They all agreed that Aid for Trade remains critical, with Ambassador Wilson making a very specific call to recommit to Aid for Trade at the upcoming WTO 14th Ministerial Conference in 2026 in Cameroon.
He stated: “In the Africa Caribbean Pacific region, we have every single developmental typology: small islands, least developed countries, landlocked developing countries, many commodity dependent countries, countries most affected by climate crisis and some of the most debt ridden countries in the world….
“But, we also house the fastest growing and youngest population on planet; are the agricultural market of the future; hold the mineral wealth and commodities for the next developmental wave; are large ocean states with unexplored seas; and are the consumer markets of the next century.”
The Ambassador stressed the need to bridge these realities, including through targeted and focused Aid for Trade, with predictability and accountability at the core.
He also highlighted that with all of the development aid cuts, it may appear strange to advocate for trade related capacity building, “but this is exactly the time that we need to recommit as global problems require global solutions and Aid for Trade is a proven global solution”.
Ambassador Wilson continued: “Traditional overseas development assistance will not meet the development needs of this world, but it is an important leveraging instrument of public and private funding and international and domestic resource mobilisation.”
Drawing on the Barbados experience, he said that they must again see the shared value in a development cooperation that is good for the receiving country and its population and for the committing country and its population.
He shared that Aid for Trade can build markets for investment, create new consumers for products and services, address social problems around irregular migration, support the green transition, and “turbocharge” value addition, while transforming commodity dependence into commodity enhancement.
The event benefitted from a clear message from the United Kingdom’s (UK) Director General for Economics, Climate and Global Issues at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Jenny Bates, around UK support to developing countries. This was echoed by Australia’s Ambassador, James Baxter.
Aid for Trade aims to help developing economies, including least developed countries, tackle trade-related obstacles, strengthen their capacity to trade, and build the infrastructure they need to integrate into the international trading system.
Source: https://gisbarbados.gov.bb/blog/barbados-highlights-need-for-recommitment-to-aid-for-trade/
Author: Government of Barbados
