The paper reviews the provisions within the WTO multilateral trade regime which impact on the policy space for LDCs which are interested in pursuing industrial policies as latecomers. It finds that LDCs are more constrained by lack of capacity rather than by WTO provisions, in contrast to more advanced developing countries.
The paper first provides a brief overview of the LDCs economies and export structures. Then it explores the debates and perspectives on industrial policy taking into account the requirements of multilateral trade policy. The next section looks specifically at the provisions within the WTO regime and assesses the scope for policy space for industrial policies by LDCs…
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The paper investigates the effectiveness of trade preferences for LDCs. It confirms that overall trade preferences for LDCs increase LDC exports. However, it also finds that effectiveness differs across the nine providers included in the study (EU, US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, the Russian Federation and Turkey) and that only a subset of LDCs is able to benefit from trade preferences.
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The paper overviews the evidence of good governance institutional reform agenda on the development outcomes of LDCs. For building development governance capacity in LDC for achieving sustainable development goals, successful examples suggest a few key common features: (1) existence of government/political leadership; (2) organizational set up for achieving national development goals; (3) structural transformation from poor human capital base and low quality of the bureaucracies. The lessons learned from these examples cannot simply be transmitted to other LDCs, but should be seen as practical policy lessons.
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The paper discusses two ways of building productive capacity in LDCs: the manufacture of products to foreign buyers? specifications, and the integration of resource-based sectors into global value chains using backward and forward linkages. Using country examples the paper then shows how government and the international community can support the growth of productive capacity in various ways including research institutes and public research organisations. The paper argues that some LDCs should try to leapfrog into newly emerging sectors such as renewable energy.
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The paper looks into the origins of Aid for Trade (AfT) and its objective of assisting developing countries to increase exports of goods and services and integrate into the multilateral trading system. Pointing out that AfT is not a new development fund nor a new aid category, the paper looks into the flows and impact of ODA resources allocated to AfT while focusing on LDCs as well as the effectiveness of AfT. Among the recommendations, the paper argues that most Aid for Trade is allocated to middle income countries and that a shift in this allocation pattern is needed to give more attention to LDCs, particular those that are not well integrated into the global market.
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The conventional approach to least developed country (LDC) graduation has considered these countries as an undifferentiated group whose problems could be solved by means of similar measures focusing on domestic and international liberalisation, preferential aid allocations, and the promotion of their exports by means of trade preferences and free market access. This paper tries to go beyond this analytical and policy tradition and attempts to identify different LDC clusters in which underdevelopment is caused by specific economic and social conditions, and for which the solution depends not only on traditional support measures, but also on the implementation of differentiated, country-…
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This paper aims to draw insights from New Structural Economics by applying its practical policy tool - the Growth Identification and Facilitation Framework (GIFF) - to least developed countries (LDCs) with a special focus on the case of Uganda. The GIFF offers practical development paths for enabling developing countries to follow comparative advantage in its industrial development and to tap into the potential of advantages of backwardness in industrial upgrading in an effort to achieve sustained and dynamic growth. After a brief introduction of the GIFF, we present an overview of Uganda's recent economic and social performance and analyse Uganda's factor endowments, i.e., land (or…
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Economic growth, environmental sustainability and human development in the Solomon Islands have lagged much of the Pacific region since independence in 1978. Trade contributes insufficiently to development, partly because of the dominance of the logging industry but also due to the lack of emphasis on building productive capacities with a view to economic transformation toward higher productivity activities. Targeted soft industrial policies may help address these shortcomings, in the form of sectoral prioritisation; linkages policies; joint government-donor support to build appropriate infrastructure; and the development of human resources in specific areas. Government institutional…
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