'Mainstreaming Trade Into Poverty
Alleviation-Status of the Implementation
of the Integrated Framework "IF" in
Cambodia'

Presented by
H.E. Mr. CHAM PRASIDH
Minister of Commerce
at the 6th Consultative Group Meeting
Government Palace, Phnom Penh
19-21 June 2002

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

The Millennium Development Goals (September, 2000) aspired to the goal of developing a true Global Partnership for Development which pointed to the establishment of an inclusive and equitable globalization.

The Millennium Declaration called for an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading system, and a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction-both nationality and internationally.

          UN LDC-III Conference in Brussels
          WTO 4th Ministerial Meeting in Doha

The Financing for Development Conference's Monterrey Consensus (March 2002) moved the commitment further toward a new resource framework, which goes beyond ODA and included mobilization of domestic resources, revenue generated by trade, and FDI

The WTO Singapore Ministerial Conference (December, 1996) mandated a more “integrated approach to assisting LDSs to  enhance their trading opportunities” requesting the six core agencies providing trade-related capacity building and technical assistance to collaborate more closely, and with bilateral donors, to achieve a more efficient and coherent delivery of assistance

An enhanced IF programme was put in place (May, 2001)

The basic purpose is to embed the trade agenda into a country’s overall development strategy (the PRSP or UN Development Assistance Framework process) and to ensure Trade Related Capacity Building is coherent to the trade policy aims of the country concerned, and prioritised with other development assistance needs.  

"...The Doha Ministerial Declaration provides for wider cooperation between agencies, bilateral donors and beneficiaries. It mandates the 6 core agencies to identify ways of enhancing and rationalizing the IF and to explore the extension of the model to all LDCs, following the review of the IF and the appraisal of the ongoing Pilot Scheme in selected countries (Cambodia, Madagascar, and Mauritania)...".

The mainstreaming process involves 5 stages.

First Stage: carry out a country diagnostic trade integration study (DTIS). Cambodia was one of the first countries to undertake and complete a diagnostic trade integration study.

The Third Stage involves the endorsement by the Government and other stakeholders of the policy recommendations and the TA Matrix.

Cambodia adopted the Diagnostic Study and the TA Matrix in January 2002.

The 29th IAWG/DAC/OECD Joint Meeting subsequently endorsed it in Paris in the same month.

The Fourth stage  involves the submission of the TA Matrix to donors for financing. Within the 6 months period leading to the CG meeting today, Cambodia has diligently and systematically worked with the core agencies and bilateral donors to secure funding for activities identified in the TA Matrix.

8 February 2002. The 30th IAWG Meeting approved, and the IF Steering Committee endorsed, the First IF project resulting from the Cambodia Diagnostic Study. The project will use an earmarked fund of $500,000 from Japan via the IF UN Trust Fund, and some co-funding from UNDP.

The Fifth and Last Stage of the mainstreaming process involves the responses of donors and the six core agencies to follow up on the specific TA projects identified in the TA Matrix, some of which will require long-term effort

• 3.0 million TA for Cambodia's accession to the WTO and SPS/TBT.

• 4.9 million TA for Institutional Support Programs including TA for ASEAN and WTO matters, trade negotiating skills.

• Development of the MoC website: "www.moc.gov.kh"
• Capacity Building for trade support and trade policy-making
• Tools for Private Sector Support            • Development of the Legal Framework      • Translation and publication of the Trade Diagnostic Report: "Cambodia: Integration and Competitiveness Study"
• Conference on Globalization
• Support for WTO accession: Publication of of Results of the Uruguay Rounds in Khmer

• Study Tours

• Trainfortrade program

• UNCTAD-ICC Investment Guides

• Translation of Trade Negotiations Materials

Cambodia IF Model - Where are we? Status of its implementation:

Cambodia IF Model - Where are we? Status of its Implementation:
Active Contributions by Other Agencies and International
Financial Institutions (IFIs)

National Development Strategy and the Trade Policy Process

"...Once mainstreamed into the PRSP the role of trade will be firmly situated within Cambodia's coherent national policy context and its trade-related technical assistance needs will stand a much better chance of being financed by donors and agencies..."

Mainstreaming Trade Strategy into the Development Policies Towards Poverty Reduction in Cambodia

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"...It may not be by trying at this stage to get the most of concessions from a tiny country like Cambodia that WTO members will get something substantial for their countries, it shall be instead at the new round of trade negotiations kicked off at Doha last November that more important and more substantial gains should be sought. We do not rush to enter WTO just for the sake of being a member, but to be in a position to play a more active role and to benefit from the world trading system... Without bringing back to Cambodia the benefits of globalization, the whole preparation process that we have so far undertaken would be jeopardized by opposition forces to globalization, which are still on the wait-and-see position in Cambodia..."

Opening Statement of
Cambodian Chief Negotiator
Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh
at the 2nd working Party in February 2002

"The success of the IF initiative can only be determined over the medium-term taking into account the extent to which the trade agenda including the policy recommendations are meaningfully included into the country's development process, and the extent to which bilateral and multilateral agencies continue to respond to the capacity building needs through the consultative group processes of the key lending agencies, and bilateral donor country programmes and according to comparative advantage, the activities of other multilateral agencies.

Ultimately, success can only be defined on the basis that realised trade improvements, will promote growth and contribute to welfare gains..."

Susan Prowse, The World Economy Journal

"....In a nutshell, the Integrated Framework can help Cambodia develop is competitiveness and supply capacity to meet the challenges of Globalization....and help Cambodia to turn its hope into reality..."

THANK YOU

FOR YOUR ATTENTION