WTO Geneva, Switzerland September 2017

1. Trade And SDGs:
Scaling Up The
Contribution Of
Business
Senior Vice President
Mahmoud Mohieldin September 20170

2. Positive GDP growth and trade trends in
emerging and advanced economies
Emerging Markets and Developing Economies
Advanced Economies

3. Favorable Perception of Trade
Think Trade is Good, Selected Economies, 2014 (percent)

4. Can the SDGs be met without trade?

5. 4
PUBLIC & CONCESSIONAL FINANCING,
INCLUDING SUB-SOVEREIGN
• Public finance (incl. national development banks and
domestic SWF)
• MDBs and DFIs
COMMERCIAL
FINANCING
PUBLIC AND CONCESSIONAL
RESOURCES FOR RISK
INSTRUMENTS
& CREDIT ENHANCEMENTS
• Guarantees
• First Loss
UPSTREAM REFORMS
& MARKET FAILURES
• Country and Sector Policies
• Regulations and Pricing
• Institutions and Capacity
3
4
2
Can commercial financing be
cost-effectively mobilized for
sustainable investment? If not…
Can upstream reforms be put in
place to address market failures?
If not…
Can risk instruments & credit
enhancements cost-effectively
cover remaining risks? If not…
Can development objectives be
resolved with scarce public
financing?
1
Cascade approach incorporates public and
private financing systematically

6. The main pillars of the WBG’s work in trade
The World Bank Group has supported $122 million of this work, together with partners
Trade Policy and
Integration
• Analysis and policy
advice to help
countries eliminate
unneeded non-tariff
measures, or NTMs
• Modernizing
services regulations
and trade
• Addressing the
poverty and labor
impacts of trade
policies and shocks
• Supporting global
and regional
integration,
including free trade
agreement
negotiations and
World Trade
Organization
accession and
participation.
Trade Performance
• Help for
governments in
designing and
implement policies
to maximize their
trade
competitiveness in
both goods and
services.
• Assistance to create
a comprehensive
policy frameworks
that shape individual
firms’ capacities and
incentives to import
and export
• Help for
governments to
reap the gains from
openness to trade
and to manage both
adjustment costs
and external
shocks.
Competition Policies
• Eliminating anti-
competitive market
regulations
• Strengthening
antitrust rules
• Promoting pro-
competition sector
policies
• State-owned
enterprises.
Trade Facilitation and
Logistics
• Strengthening trade
corridors, supply
chains, and trade
logistics
• Modernizing border
management
• Enhancing
connectivity
between firms,
markets, and
consumers.

7. Senior Vice President
Mahmoud Mohieldin September 2017
Thank You
worldbankgroup.org/sdgs
Follow us on twitter @WBG2030
Mahmoud-Mohieldin on
mmohieldin@worldbank.org
6

8. Reduction in trade barriers and GDP growth
47

9. Specific references to trade in the SDGs
8.A: Increase Aid for Trade support for developing countries, in particular least
developed countries, including through the Enhanced Integrated Framework for Trade-
Related Technical Assistance to Least Developed Countries
10.A: Implement the principle of special and differential treatment for developing countries,
in particular least developed countries, in accordance with World Trade Organization
agreements
TRADE
17.10: Promote a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral
trading system under the World Trade Organization, including through the conclusion of
negotiations under its Doha Development Agenda
17.11: Significantly increase the exports of developing countries, in particular with a view to
doubling the least developed countries’ share of global exports by 2020
17.12: Realize timely implementation of duty-free and quota-free market access on a lasting
basis for all least developed countries, consistent with World Trade Organization decisions,
including by ensuring that preferential rules of origin applicable to imports from least
developed countries are transparent and simple, and contribute to facilitating market access

10. A LARGE POOL OF
PRIVATE CAPITAL
IS YET TO BE
CATALIZED
WITH JUDICIOUS USE OF
SCARCE PUBLIC
AND CONCESSIONAL
RESOURCES
Finance for the SDGs Will Need to
come from Multiple Sources
9

11. Trade and poverty
410
• Sustained efforts to lower trade costs and integrate global markets
can maximize the gains for the extreme poor.
• Strong growth in developing countries will be needed to achieve the
end of poverty, and trade is a critical enabler of growth, opening up
opportunities for new and better work for the poor
• Lowering barriers to trade is part of a wider approach that recognizes
the specific constraints facing the extreme poor — and for many, their
disconnection from markets — if they are to benefit from trade.
• Four leading characteristics of the poor that have a strong impact on
their capacity to extract the full potential benefits of trade: rural
poverty; fragility and conflict; informality; and gender.
• In order to have the greatest impact toward ending poverty, trade policy
must be made and implemented in conjunction with other areas of
policy. This entails deeper cooperation across sectoral lines, government
agencies, and a wider range of stakeholders.

12. Trade and poverty
411
• Reducing trade costs in countries where the poor live may not just oil
the engine of economic growth, but also can increase the
competitiveness of the goods and services traded by the poor and
lower the costs of key inputs in production, such as fertilizers for
poor farmers.
• The inverse relationship between trade costs and income — the
poorer countries are, the higher the trade costs they face —
underlines the need to do more on this front.
• Lowering trade costs is particularly important for countries seeking
to take advantage of the fragmentation of production through global
value chains, which offer new opportunities to generate growth and
income gains through trade.

13. Trade and poverty
412
There are five inter-related and complementary areas of policy that
can be considered by countries and the international community in
implementing this approach:
1. Lowering trade costs for deeper integration of markets
2. Improving the enabling environment
3. Intensifying the poverty impact of integration policies
4. Managing and mitigating risks faced by the poor.
5. Improving data and analysis to inform policy
For this reason approaches that focus on lowering trade costs
between countries will need to be complemented by efforts to tackle
challenges faced by the poor within and across national borders. This
underlines the importance of the various programs that the World
Trade Organization and World Bank Group have in place to address
these challenges, and of further efforts in this regard.

14. Trade and poverty
413
Based on recent World Bank projections of
likely global growth to 2030, growth is
unlikely to be high enough across all
developing countries to reduce poverty to
the level sought by 2030.
The extreme poor face numerous constraints
that limit their capacity to benefit from
wider economic gains. In this context, trade
integration is important not only because of
the boost to growth it can provide, but also
because there is room for it be executed in
ways that more effectively overcome the
constraints faced by the extreme poor.

15. Partnership
414
For this reason approaches that focus on lowering trade costs
between countries will need to be complemented by efforts to tackle
challenges faced by the poor within and across national borders. This
underlines the importance of the various programs that the World
Trade Organization and World Bank Group have in place to address
these challenges, and of further efforts in this regard.

16. 415
• Trade openness has brought about higher
productivity, greater competition, lower prices,
and improved living standards.

17. Reduction in trade barriers and GDP growth
416
• Trade has, however, negatively impacted groups of
workers and some communities
• Dislocations depend not just on size or abruptness of trade
shock, but on broader circumstances, such as health of the
economy, labor market rigidities, and other impediments to
resource reallocation, as well as social protection policies
• Domestic policies to address trade-related
adjustments are critical
• Approaches beyond labor market policies are also
needed
• Further trade integration is important to
reinvigorating global growth and advancing an
inclusive trading environment