Strategies for mainstreaming regional aid for trade

This chapter studies the insights gained from the case stories undertaken for the Global Review of Aid for Trade 2011, the three case studies undertaken for this study (and included in Chapters 4-6), stakeholders consultations, and expert group meetings in order to delineate “best practices” in designing, mainstreaming and implementing regional aid for trade. While there is a good deal of regional diversity at the sub-regional level, a number of common threads emerge, including that regional aid for trade has, in fact, been to date effective in all regions and continues to have great potential for using efficiently development assistance resources, but that it is underfunded and faces a variety of obstacles that need to be overcome, from a stronger stress on ownership to inclusion of the private sector in regional aid for trade initiatives.