The World Bank in Trade: The New Trade Agenda

The World Bank’s engagement on trade has intensified in recent years. Afterhigh levels of trade-related lending during the 1980s, theBank turned its attention away from trade during most of the 1990s.1 However, by 2001, as it became clear that developing countries ’ participation in the globalization process was uneven and as the debate on globalization began to intensify, the Bank began to ramp up its trade work once again in 2001.2 But the agenda was different in 2001 than in earlier periods. No longer were Bank activities primarily focused on tariffs and other border barriers to trade (many of which had come down significantly), but rather on the “complementary policies” necessary to ignite growth and ensure participation of the poor in globalization. The “New Trade Agenda ” of the World Bank has three goals. The first is to make the world trading system more supportive of development at the global level, particularly in the products the poor produce—namely agriculture and labor-intensive products. The second is to improve the trade-creating aspects of preferential trade agreements at the regional level. The third is to help developing countries incorporate trade into national development strategies to promote growth. The Bank’s country work is focused on overcoming the supply-side constraints that prevent developin