In this paper, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have drawn together available research findings on the benefits of trade liberalization as well as on the obstacles to trade-oriented development

Efforts to liberalize world trade are increasingly focusing on strengthening the links between low-income countries’ trade policies and their development strategies. However, although greater trade openness promises faster growth for poor countries, it also presents risks to those with small...

This paper reviews major issues and developments in the trade area and outlines the challenges governments face as they seek to liberalize trade in the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations and address new trade issues. In industrial countries, the reorientation of policies was most apparent in...

This paper focuses on goal setting for development of the world. The paper highlights that the goals come from the agreements and resolutions of the world conferences organized by the United Nations in the first half of the 1990s. The paper focuses on seven goals that cover poverty, education,...

Although the impact of the global crisis has been severe, real per capita GDP growth stayed positive in two-thirds of low-income countries (LICs), unlike in previous global downturns, and in contrast to richer countries. Emerging from the Global Crisis explores how LICS have coped with the...

A Development Emergency: the title of this year's Global Monitoring Report, the sixth in an annual series, could not be more apt. The global economic crisis, the most severe since the Great Depression, is rapidly turning into a human and development crisis. No region is immune. The poor...

Aid for trade can support countries trying to further benefit from the expanding global market place by helping to address poorly performing infrastructure and institutions. Needless to say, good policies also matter: trade liberalization, improving incentives for private investment in trade,...

While the impact of the global crisis has been severe, real per capita GDP growth stayed positive in two-thirds of low-income countries (LICs), unlike in previous global downturns, and in contrast to richer countries. The crisis affected LICs not so much through the terms of trade or global...

This report examines macroeconomic developments and related vulnerabilities in low-income developing countries (LIDCs)-a group of 60 countries that have markedly different economic features to higher income countries and are eligible for concessional financing from both the IMF and the World...