Unlike in 2013, PPPs are today widely embraced as a vehicle to promote digital trade. Now, they need to be used in places where they have been scarcer, such as the LDCs.
The Ministry of Tourism hosts the handicraft and Souvenir Development project, which is supported by the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF); with among other objectives being improving quality, standards and marketing tourism exports such as souvenirs to boost foreign exchange.
The EIF recognises that our contribution to creating a thriving e-commerce ecosystem in LDCs is part and parcel of a bigger effort bringing together the expertise and skills of many others. While some are working together with the private sector, including small businesses, others are working with governments. While some invest in building digital infrastructure, others impart knowledge to build digital skills and yet others provide support to prepare and implement e-commerce policies.
LDCs have traditionally relied on high-cost, low-impact means of showing off their goods by, for example, hiring booths at trade shows and expos. Ecommerce platforms allow them to exponentially grow the number of products they can show off to potential customers, simplify the selling process, reduce transactional costs, increase trade revenues, and boost economic growth.
Resilience is necessary in the rice trade, developing it requires many
About 80% of Cambodians are rural farmers, and rice is the country’s main crop. But, until the last decade or so, the sector had not been living up to its potential.
Expanding and diversifying productive capacities will better position least developed countries (LDCs) to tap the financing and e-trade opportunities that will underpin their Covid-19 recovery. This was a recurrent theme in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Least Developed Countries Report 2020, which cautioned however that the international community must first rally with resources, policy space and better international support measures.
The government of Uganda put containment measures in place to tackle COVID-19. These included quarantines; bans on public gatherings and weekly markets; closures of schools, borders and nonessential retail outlets; and the suspension of international flights.
Recently launched ecommerce training program and portal will help hundreds of women entrepreneurs in South Asian LDCs become part of regional and global supply chains.
The possibility of reconfiguring manufacturing processes through new digital technologies and data provides opportunities to reboot industrial development in least developed countries.
The entrepreneurial uptake of computer technology and the entrenchment of digitisation have made Africa a demonstrable source of intellectual power in the digital sphere.
The Enhanced Integrated Framework’s Trade for Development News is launching a new series of articles focusing on three major trade conversations happening today.
The digital transformation provides developing economies new opportunities to leapfrog industrial age infrastructure, to draw on the vast knowledge spillovers from the internet, to take advantage of new markets offered by digital platforms and to exploit production possibilities enabled by digital technologies.
Following UNCTAD’s Ecommerce Week in April 2019 and on the cusp of a new partnership with EIF to boost ecommerce, Rwanda’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Geneva discusses the state of play for online trade in the country
During UNCTAD’s Ecommerce Week in April 2019, Deputy Director General for International Trade at the Cambodia Ministry of Commerce talks all things e-trade
The Global Trade Professionals Alliance (GTPA) is delighted to partner with the EIF Programme on a session focussed on building skills for the digital economy through education, interaction & advocacy as part of Africa e
Geographical barriers, including isolation from main markets, have resulted in issues for Vanuatu to access international networks and grow its businesses
Launching of these specific initiatives demonstrates the progressive vision of Vanuatu to stimulate the economy and leverage opportunities through international trade for delivering growth and development
Consumers and businesses in two remote Pacific island nations can look forward to a better connected and more prosperous future, according to assessments made by UNCTAD of their readiness to benefit from electronic commerce
The Government has shown a strong interest in adopting economic and social policies that can facilitate the development of the Internet economy, of which e-commerce is one segment. Unlocking its potential will also reduce distance to markets, reduce “sealockedness” and enable Vanuatu to leapfrog certain barriers associated with physical trade
The current low use of ecommerce in Solomon Islands belies significant potential for the sector to grow swiftly and make economic and socioeconomic contributions to the country
The distinctive character of trade policy 3.0 is that, in addition to “writing down the rules” of trade in natural language (trade policy 1.0) and use of “single window systems” that replicate paper-based delivery in the digital realm (trade policy 2.0), countries are able to publish computational rules to the Internet in a standard way
Ms. Mere Falemaka, Permanent Representative of the Pacific Islands Forum to the WTO in Geneva, shared with us some precious insights about the specificities of the region.
The Pacific Island nation of Samoa has made considerable progress in recent years in getting businesses and consumers online but still faces challenges before being fully ready to benefit from e-commerce, an UNCTAD and EIF assessment of the country says.
19 July 2022
