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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
USAID Announces Additional Funding for Trade Capacity Building
WASHINGTON, DC 20523
PRESS OFFICE
http://www.usaid.gov/
Press: (202) 712-4320
Public Information: (202) 712-4810
2003-082
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 9, 2003
Contact: USAID Press Office
Cancun, Mexico - United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean Adolfo Franco today announced USAID will make a grant of $200,000 to the Integrated Framework (IF) Trust Fund, which assists least developed countries (LDCs) in joining the global trading system. Today's contribution brings USAID's total contribution to the Fund to $600,000. This contribution is part of the $31 million in U.S. assistance provided to the 14 IF countries and represents a 140 percent increase over last year. Franco made the announcement at the World Trade Organization (WTO) Fifth Ministerial Conference at an event with U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick to discuss trade capacity building efforts which improve prosperity and reduce global poverty.
The U.S. is the largest single country donor of trade capacity building assistance. Total U.S. funding for trade capacity building activities was $752 million in FY 2003, a more than fifty percent increase since 1999.
"Those countries which successfully integrate into the global economy have proven time and time again that trade is the key to economic growth. We have and will continue to partner with trade capacity building efforts by designing development programs that work," said Franco, noting that this contribution is in addition to the millions that USAID commits in development assistance to LDCs.
In October 1997, the Integrated Framework (IF) for Trade-Related Technical Assistance to LDCs was inaugurated at a WTO meeting. An IF steering committee is led by the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development and the International Trade Center.
The primary goal of the IF is to mainstream least developed countries into the global trading system. The U.S. has supported the IF, focusing on effective and timely response to the trade capacity building priorities identified in IF diagnostic studies. At the inception of the IF, USAID set aside $3 million in 2002 discretionary funds to help jumpstart the U.S. response while U.S. missions worked to adjust their assistance programs to deploy more resources in support of IF follow-up priorities. In Senegal, for instance, these funds supported projects in critical areas such as international negotiations, export promotion, marketing of agricultural products and modernization of telecommunications infrastructure.
The LDCs are the world's 49 most economically disadvantaged countries as determined by the UN. Of those, 14 are IF participants: Cambodia, Madagascar, Mauritania, Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Nepal, Senegal and Yemen.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has provided economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide for more than 40 years.
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