United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) 5th session of Committee on Trade Aid-for-Trade Roadmap for SPECA and the Regional AfT Implementation and Monitoring Council Dr. Ismayil Alakbarov, Vice-Chair of the Committee on Trade, Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan to the United Nations in Geneva 19 June 2012

5th session of UNECE Committee on Trade Introduction UNECE commitment to help countries with transition economies UNECE support of Aid-for-Trade (AfT) Roadmap for SPECA Initiative Targets of the Initiative Launched in 2008 by the Governments of Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan Ensure greater coordination and create synergies Baku Ministerial Declaration 2010 3 Priorities for developing trade: Developing national supply-side capacity Harnessing cross-border cooperation Facilitating the integration 5th session of UNECE Committee on Trade 18-19 June 2012

5th session of UNECE Committee on Trade Achievements National and regional AfT “action matrices” consolidated into standardized format Consolidated matrices have been prepared and translated into Russian and French for the current session of the Committee on Trade SPECA countries are going to be consulted for verification and update during 2H 2012 SPECA AfT Implementation and Monitoring Council was launched in November 2011 in Ashgabad 5th session of UNECE Committee on Trade 18-19 June 2012

SPECA AfT Implementation and Monitoring Cooperation with development partners that supported Baku Ministerial Conference UNDP, UNIDO, ITC, ITFC (member of IDB) and WTO plus UNECE as coordinator Terms of Reference were drafted / All projects were reviewed The Council and its structure / Voluntary coordinating mechanism The Council shall monitor the implementation of AfT in support of national and regional priorities Major tasks of the Council During next 6-8 months, the Council will be working closely with SPECA countries to identify implementation gaps and identify projects 5th session of UNECE Committee on Trade 18-19 June 2012

Follow-up to the Baku AfT Ministerial Conference Countries that have not presented their national matrices, namely Afghanistan, will be approached and assisted in preparing a national matrix A number of projects were submitted by development partners and national counterparts at the Baku Ministerial Conference. These projects were discussed by the Council More work needs to be done to bring more coherence to these projects 5th session of UNECE Committee on Trade 18-19 June 2012

5th session of UNECE Committee on Trade Immediate Tasks Monitor the implementation of AfT in support of national and regional priorities determined by SPECA member countries Actively pursue funding for those projects identified as priorities. Donor Conference Encourage the exchange of information as well coordination among donors and implementing agencies in the region in order to best support priority actions. 5th session of UNECE Committee on Trade 18-19 June 2012

5th session of UNECE Committee on Trade Challenges Impact of the global financial and economic crisis The crisis has lowered demand for region’s non-energy exports Domestic financial resources available for supporting trade development has been reduced Immediate needs – increased competition required concerted efforts to transform towards activities with higher value-added and greater economic diversification Improving the donor and agency effectiveness 5th session of UNECE Committee on Trade 18-19 June 2012