Trade and development

Project description

Trade is a major instrument of the EU’s external relations and many of the poorest countries, particularly in Africa, remain heavily dependent on their exports towards the EU market. The EU has always used trade policy and measures for development motives, but their design and their content have fundamentally changed over time. There is now a realisation that trade – and trade liberalisation – is not sufficient to deliver the development promise. Research on this component of the EU-Beacon project will look into the challenges of implementation of the EU’s trade policy towards developing countries, to highlight areas where more coherence and better coordination will be needed at the EU level and taking into account the perspective of developing partner countries. The linkages between trade and governance will particularly be explored.
The project will particularly focus on the contribution of EU’s trade policy towards developing countries to the overarching MDGs 1 and 8 and thus work on the international level of development policy., with the objective of drawing conclusions and recommendations for the coherence of domestic (European) trade policies, instruments and modalities, as well as identify needs in terms of coordination, notably between the Commission and Member States.

Current activity:
Delivering Aid for Trade for development: EU coordination in Zambia