Economic Development and Trade

One of the most powerful weapons against poverty is sustained and inclusive economic growth. For the past 50 years we have used our expertise to help governments, communities and private sector organisations create the right environment for this growth This has enabled us to develop the delivery systems for promoting economic development at both local and national level, in rural and urban settings, across Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe. We have undertaken analytical work and technical assistance for the EC, DFID and UNDP on trade, regional economic integration and improving the business environment. We are also part of the Economist and Private Sector Development Services Resource Centre for DFID.

Economic growth is essential to long-term development and eradicating poverty. Trade and economic development are closely linked – all countries need to trade to grow, but the current international trading system is not favourable towards developing countries. Therefore, the Eighth Millennium Development Goal of establishing global partnerships for development includes the target of developing further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system. However, economic growth in developing countries now faces a new challenge – that of the global economic downturn – which has reduced demand for their goods and inwards investment.

The main issues faced in achieving economic development are:

poor conditions for private sector investment (poor governance, lack of infrastructure);
limited financial services with lack of access to credit for small businesses;
large domestic subsidies to agriculture within rich countries; and
unfair trade rules prevent the poorest countries gaining access to the biggest markets.

HTSPE has been involved in many aspects of economic development and trade - from WTO negotiations and accession, through to investment promotion and competitiveness. We have the skills and ability to help governments develop and deliver on policy, and private sector companies to develop their markets and improve their production and value chain. Our approach is a practical one, enabling clients to maximise the opportunities available to them. We are committed to providing hands-on training and capacity building to enable clients to promote economic development and engage with the international trade architecture beyond the life-time of the project.

Specifically, HTSPE supports governments, communities and the private sector with:

Trade Policy Formulation and Implementation covering issues such as tariffs, incentives, quotas, taxes, customs and administration, subsidies, rules of origin, public procurement regimes, aid and investment, export promotion bodies and diversification.
Accession to the World Trade Organisation and implementation of WTO Commitments.
Export Market Development – at a regional and international level, including specific expertise on access to the Single European Market.
Investment Promotion, identifying the investment needs of a country, region, business sector or company, and the design and implementation of strategic investment promotion programmes.
International Competitiveness, including components such as: business and regulatory procedures; infrastructure; training and human resource development; improved access to markets and information; manufacturing and quality standards; the capabilities and effectiveness of export support organisations.
Global Market Research, undertaking complex market research assignments on a world-wide basis.
Privatisation - our work has encompassed advising government and executive agencies and every stage of the restructuring/privatisation process.
Regional Development - from the actual creation of Regional Development Agencies and providing institutional support, to the provision of advice to enterprises in the region with the aim of stimulating the economy through growth and job creation measures.

Nigeria and (Economic Community of West African States) ECOWAS

Nigeria ranks among the poorest countries in the world and poverty in the country is linked to social, economic, political, cultural and environmental factors. With an estimated population of 140 million, 70 percent of Nigerians live below the poverty level of less than a $1 a day. Nevertheless, as Nigeria is the largest economy and market in the ECOWAS sub-region, it is important for the country to position itself for mutually beneficial trade within and beyond the ECOWAS community – the country needs to develop a strategic plan on trade development.

The specific objectives of our assignment included:

Assessing the needs to implement current trade reforms and prepare future trade reforms in Nigeria, ECOWAS economic integration agenda and the Economic Partnership Agreement.
Assessing and identifying needs in terms of production and increase of non-oil exports.
Proposing areas of intervention that can be supported by the EC to address these needs in the context of the 10th EDF National Indicative Programme (NIP).

The study prioritised the needs so as to facilitate the programming and formulation of EC support and determine the scope and extent of such support.

Our work covered five main areas:

Summarise and analyse the main constraints for Nigeria to benefit from trade and to comprehensively articulate its needs in the area of trade related assistance.
Assess the state of implementation of the ECOWAS integration agenda in Nigeria, particularly in the following areas: customs union; free movement of goods, persons and services; trade facilitation, competition, government procurement, intellectual property rights, sanitary and phytosanitary measures; macroeconomic and fiscal policy.
Examine work undertaken by Nigerian and ECOWAS authorities concerning the definition of accompanying measures to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Examine Nigeria’s constraints and needs to increase non-oil sector production and capacities.
Provide inputs to the Nigeria's country strategy paper for the related focal sector "trade and regional integration".

Ukraine: Trade Policy

HTSPE worked closely with a range of institutions (primarily in government) to strengthen trade policy formulation and implementation in Ukraine. The goal of the project was deeper trade liberalisation and progress on Ukraine's accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The outputs of the programme were to:

improve technical and analytical basis to WTO accession negotiations;
implementation of WTO Agreements;
support to the Committee of European Integration; and
support to awareness-raising and dialogue.

HTSPE worked closely with the Government of Ukraine to undertake the following activities:

improve evidence-based policy making;
develop systematic mechanisms for dialogue and consultation between relevant stakeholders (inside and outside government);
provide support to on-going negotiations in the WTO;
support on-going institutional reform processes; and
build capacity to deal with emerging WTO implementation issues.

Russia: INTERREG and ENPI

The INTERREG initiative is for EU-funded programmes that help Europe’s regions form partnerships to work together on common projects. By sharing knowledge and experience, these partnerships enable the regions involved to develop new solutions to economic, social and environmental challenges. The Neighbourhood Programmes – and their successor the European Neighbourhood Initiative Programmes (ENPI) - expand the intra-EU INTERREG concept to the EU’s borders with neighbouring countries.

This project was to conduct ex-post evaluations of the achievements of completed projects of the Programme; to carry out interim evaluations of ongoing projects; and to provide recommendations for the new ENPI Cross-Border-Cooperation programmes 2007-2013 in Kolarctic, Euregio Karelia, Lithuania, Poland and Kaliningrad regions.

The evaluation was based on a variety of techniques, ranging from deep and extensive desk-based analysis of official programme/project documents through to e-survey (emailed questionnaires with selected telephone interview follow-up) and face-to-face interviews of various management entities around the target regions. Extensive analysis of the findings and qualitative information from the primary research concluded that the initiative brings real benefits, to the extent that all participants worked hard to overcome the main constraints, such as:

Incompatible accounting and programme management systems in Russia and the EU, resulting in the need to maintain two sets of financial and management records in euro and local currency. The bureaucratic restrictions were compounded by Russian decision-making being highly centralised, thus introducing delays to implementation of regional initiatives.
EU funding requires procurement of goods to comply with “Rules of Origin” whereas some of these are either too expensive for local resources and/or are of the wrong specification to meet the needs. More flexibility would help to achieve the project aims.
Inexperience of programme and project developers and managers on the non-EU side of the borders: the recommendation for ENPI was to provide much more training at the start (project preparation) and for managers during implementation.

AGADIR - Jordan

In the Barcelona Declaration (1995), the Euro-Mediterranean Partners agreed on the establishment of a Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area (EMFTA) by the target date of 2010.

The Agadir Agreement signed in February 2004 by Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan is an important example of a south/south agreement between a number of the EU's Mediterranean partners designed to contribute to the realisation of the EMFTA. The Agreement came into force in July 2006.

The European Union provided €4 million through a Financing Agreement approved in 2004 under the MEDA Regional budget for a project entitled “Support to the implementation of the south-south sub-regional Free Trade Area of Agadir”.

The European Commission planned to make a further financial allocation supporting Mediterranean regional trade integration in 2009. An assessment of the activities under the 2004 Financing Agreement was needed in order to prepare for the planned future assistance.

Our work was to provide the European Commission with an objective independent assessment of the implementation of the activities under the Financing Agreement during the period from April 2005 to January 2008.

The project outputs were assessed in relation to the objectives of the Financing Agreement, the overall Terms of Reference of the implementing contractor, and the specific TOR for each of the activities. The evaluation examined the outputs of the project for their support to a regional trade integration process. The sustainability and capacity of the co-ordination structures set up under the Agadir Agreement with the assistance of the project were also assessed.

The evaluation was based on a Desk Review of key documents and interviews with key stakeholders (EC Delegation Amman, Jordanian Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the Agadir Technical Unit (in Amman) on behalf of the Agadir partner countries).

To view more detail or additional projects please click on the links below:

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Project Management of the Closed Nuclear Cities Partnership (CNCP)
Policy and Knowledge Facility
Sector Policy Support Programme in Social Protection and Public Finance Management
Framework Contract BENEF Lot 10 - Trade, Standards and Private Sector
Policy Development Facility