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Global Advocacy
The global advocacy category covers services that are designed to promote the use of trade as a development tool and to encourage support for developing countries’ efforts to improve their trade capacity building. This includes analysis and dissemination of trade-related information, promoting understanding of the relationship between trade and development, and supporting policies. Some agencies provide information on and support for the interactions between their more specialized interests and trade.
International Labour Organization(ilo)
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific(unescap)
Legal and Regulatory Framework
Assistance under this category includes helping countries to bring their own regulations into conformity with international rules, more general help to improve their legal institutions, and training officials to deal with such rules. A number of the agencies specialise in particular areas, rather than trying to provide expertise on the legal rules in all sectors. For several, the aim is to balance trade-related obligations with other national (or international) interests.
International Labour Organization(ilo)
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific(unescap)
World Intellectual Property Organization(wipo)
Modalities of legislative assistance
Progressive development of patent laws
Progressive development of trademark, industrial design and geographical indication laws
Progressive development of copyright laws
Building respect for intellectual property
Supply Capacity
In line with the trade focus of this Guide, support activities to develop supply capacity are considered to be those that aim to increase the availability of goods and services for export. There is no easy distinction between this and building more general capacity to produce, and this distinction is becoming less pertinent as borders open and competition in local markets from imports increases. Some agencies do not make this distinction in their projects.
International Labour Organization(ilo)
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific(unescap)
Trade Policy Development
Agencies’ assistance to trade policy development is generally provided in four areas: design and implementation of trade policy; specific developing country issues in trade (such as commodity exports and preferences); support in trade negotiations; and assistance in managing the interactions between trade and other policies.
International Labour Organization(ilo)
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific(unescap)
Trade Facilitation
This category covers the development, harmonization, and implementation of the rules and procedures which govern how goods cross borders.
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific(unescap)
E-commerce Services & Digital Economy
This category includes capacity building activities directed to development of e-commerce from the perspective of the physical and regulatory factors, for example reducing barriers to trade across distance via electronic marketplaces, development of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure, and regulatory frameworks.
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific(unescap)