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UN family strengthens framework to deliver as one on trade and productive capacity building

24 May 2016

UNCTAD Deputy-Secretary-General, Joakim Reiter, and ILO Deputy Director-General for Policy, Deborah Greenfield, opened an information session for Geneva-based delegates on the establishment of a global Multi-Donor Trust Fund to support the UN Inter-Agency Cluster on Trade and Productive Capacity.

The Cluster is led by UNCTAD with the participation of FAO, ILO, ITC, the five regional UN commissions, UNCITRAL, UNDP, UNEP, UNIDO, UNOPS and WTO. It was launched in the context of the UN system wide-coherence reform (Delivering as One) by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon of the United Nations during the UNCTAD XII Ministerial Conference in April 2008.

Starting initially with projects in eight UN pilot countries, the Cluster has greatly expanded with ongoing operations covering more than 30 countries.

In order to build upon this success, and to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UNCTAD as the coordinating agency of the Cluster, proposed during the meeting to create a multi-donor trust fund for exclusive use by the Cluster on Trade and Productive Capacity.

The Fund will cover analysis and policy recommendations, as well as their effective operationalization through joint programmes at the country level under three thematic areas:

  1. Trade and Employment

  2. Trade and Global Value Chains

  3. Trade Facilitation

A number of national partners and beneficiaries expressed their views during the information session as well as the United Nations Resident Coordinators in Bhutan, Montenegro, Rwanda and Uruguay who represented the United Nations Resident Coordinator System worldwide and representatives of the Cluster's member agencies including the FAO, ILO, ITC, UNDP, UNCITRAL, UNECE, UN-ESCAP, UNIDO, WTO and UNOPS.

They stressed the need for agencies to work together, ideally with the support of pooled funding mechanisms such as the proposed multi-donor trust fund, which will allow the UN Inter-Agency Cluster to reach its full potential, and invited Member States to support such funds.

A second information session on the establishment of the Fund is scheduled to take place during a public session at UNCTAD 14, in Nairobi on 19 July 2016.

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