World Bank Umbrella Facility for Trade

Since inception, 320 activities have been launched in over 120 countries with support from the UFT. FY23 (fiscal year 2023) included 29 new allocations to activities (totalling US$4.1 million for a total of US$57.4 million of allocated resources since program inception). Achievements related to the specific goals of UFT: The UFT specifically seeks to leverage WBGs trade work in order to increase the number of WBG projects that incorporate trade expand the testing, experimentation, research, and sharing of new ideas on trade gather, document, and disseminate results, data, and knowledge on trade related issues and increase the WBGs voice on global trade issues through enhanced global partnerships and engagements. Significant catalysing of WBG trade operations with UFT supported activities directly informing US$5.1 billion of lending operations (US$22 billion since the start of the program). Additionally, the results for the accumulated WBG Aid for trade Commitments were USD 55 billion, which is over twice the amount of the target for FY23. (DOX 15/001180232, Umbrella Facility for Trade Annual Report FY23, 2023, p. 9, 59). Leveraging of WBGown resources. Since the start of the program, 80% percent of UFTsupported activities on trade were complemented by the WBGs own financial resources, totalling US$43.9 million. (DOX 15/001180232, Umbrella Facility for Trade Annual Report FY23, 2023, p 9) Incorporating gender and inclusion. The UFT supports activities that aim to make trade more inclusive by assessing the potential impacts of changes in trade and trade policies on the poor as well as marginalized groups. In particular, the UFT supports activities that use disaggregated data by gender to assess the impacts of trade policies on women and ensures that trade contributes to enhancing opportunities for all. Since the start of the program, 51 percent of project implementation has been spent on trade related activities with a gender component, with 161 grants (over half of the total number) addressing gender issues). In FY23, the gender related targets of the program were exceeded with 67% spent on gender and 19 projects addressing gender issues. Moreover, 22 grants specifically addressed inclusion issues and since inception of the program there have been 205 grants that addressed them. (DOX 15/001180232, Umbrella Facility for Trade Annual Report FY23, 2023, p. 9, 58). Addressing climate issues by contributing to elaboration of new toolkits to analyse the connection between climate and trade. They, for example, analyse the impact of climate change and mitigation policies on developing countries export competitiveness, the EUs carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), and the impact of water scarcity on agricultural trade. 10% of UFT project implementation spend in FY23 was addressing climate issues. (DOX 15/001180232, Umbrella Facility for Trade Annual Report FY23, 2023, p. 9). Developing innovative tools and databases. The UFT supports the creation of global public goods on trade through the development of innovative tools and databases. With support from the UFT, more than 30 trade databases have been established, maintained, and expanded over the programs lifecycle as well as 20 trade related knowledge platforms. Thematic areas covered include, among others, trade and health, digital trade, migration, tourism, trade finance, GVCs, trade and gender, trade in services, deep trade agreements (DTAs), trade and climate change, and subsidies. In FY23, a novel and comprehensive dataset on NonTariff Measures in Indonesia was published. The Services Trade Policy Database (STPD) and its accompanying Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI) were also expanded, with updated information in new sectors (computerrelated services health tourism construction architecture and engineering) for 65 countries. (DOX 15/001180232, Umbrella Facility for Trade Annual Report FY23, 2023, p. 910). Achievements towards the four pillars of the WBG Trade Strategy: Pillar 1 - Trade Competitiveness and Diversification - aims to support domestic reforms for creating conducive policy environments for sustainable growth and creating more and better jobs by leveraging global trade opportunities. Under this pillar, the WBG helps governments to reap the gains from open trade, strengthen their market through diversification, and maximise their trade competitiveness by, for example, reviewing trade policies to remove biases about importing and exporting, and provide support to government interventions targeting specific market, policy, and institutional failures. On an overall level UFT met the target of 40 recommended laws, regulations, amendments/codes enacted, or government policies adopted. (DOX 15/001180232, Umbrella Facility for Trade Annual Report FY23, 2023, p. 23, 57). Ukraine Adversity and Adaptation of Private Firms Since the Russian Invasion. The WBG is supporting the Government of Ukraine in designing policies to address specific challenges private firms and industries are facing to participate in GVCs, increase export competitiveness, and increase resilience and productivity. In this context, a comprehensive monitoring program was launched through multiple channels to find out how private sector firms in Ukraine are faring, and what support they will need going forward. UFT supported the implementation of a nationally representative survey of 2,500 businesses in Ukraine a survey of more than 80 multinational companies (MNCs) operating in Ukraine and realtime satellite data to analyze impacts of the war on different sectors and oblasts. At the 2023 Ukraine Recovery Conference, held on 2122 June 2023, in London, Anna Bjerde, World Banks Managing Director for Operations, illustrated Ukrainian resilience by sharing key findings from the survey. (DOX 15/001180232, Umbrella Facility for Trade Annual Report FY23, 2023, p. 24-25). Amazon Economic Memorandum (AEM) in Brazil. Finalized in FY23, AEM investigates how to shift the Amazon region to more sustainable sources of inclusive growth that promotes jobs and poverty reduction, and considers social, fiscal, climate and environmental implications. The study has become a foundational work for the WBG in introducing new modelling techniques, especially in relation to land use changes (deforestation) and emissions. It has influenced government policy dialogue around trade and logistics, tax reform, ecoindustrial parks, and rainforest conservation in the state of Amazonas and was featured in all major national newspapers, as well as international papers like the Guardian and The Economist. (DOX 15/001180232, Umbrella Facility for Trade Annual Report FY23, 2023, pp. 27-28). Pillar 2: Trade Facilitation and Transport Logistics. Pillar 2 has the objective to ensure the efficient operation of border management processes as well as to reduce the costs of trade related transport, finance and logistics, and increase their timeliness and reliability. During FY23, the UFT provided support to activities helping to inform policymakers in the development of improved trade facilitation and transport logistics. A new Logistics Performance Index (LPI) 2.0 was developed in FY 23. Previous LPI editions have exclusively relied on a worldwide survey among logistics professionals, whereas the new edition introduces a set of indicators derived from Big Data sources on actual trade movements of containers, airfreight and parcels by trade lanes and gateways, which complement the original surveybased data. Using the new LPI, the report Connecting to Compete was finalized and officially launched in FY23. It presents the latest worldwide view on trade logistics performance across 139 countries. (DOX 15/001180232, Umbrella Facility for Trade Annual Report FY23, 2023, p. 31) Overall alignment with the WTO Free Trade Agreement improved from 41% to 53% in 22 countries where TFSP been active. (DOX 15/001180236, TFSP FY23 Annual Report, 2023, p. 3). This is significant as the implementation of the WTO TFA has been estimated by WTO to have significantly boosted trade also in LDCs. (DOX 24/0003687, WTO News Trade Facilitation Agreement has increased trade, p 1). The TFSPs assessment of private sector savings (PSS) in Ethiopia alone resulted in USD 61.4 million in savings through reforms such as the rollout of a new customs data management system, and implementation of new railway transit procedures (DOX 15/001180236, TFSP FY23 Annual Report, 2023, p. 4). Pillar 3 -Support for Market Access and International Trade Cooperation. The objective of this pillar is to reform trade policies that negatively impact developing countries, make international rules and institutions more supportive of the needs of developing countries, and evaluate what can be done to promote desirable integration and to protect the interests of those who are left out. For instance, with support from the UFT, the WBG supports WTO accession processes including for fragile countries, helping them assess the pros and cons of WTO accession and its economic impacts. Use and Effects of State Subsidies on Global Trade. Government subsidies, for instance, have emerged as a flashpoint in geopolitical tensions that threaten to undermine the global rulesbased trading system. In FY23, with support from the UFT, the WBG has collected data and undertaken analysis on subsidies to inform the discussions on their prevalence and the need or desire for additional disciplines. On May 25, 2023, a Joint Subsidy Platform (JSP) was launched by he heads of the WTO), IMF, WBG and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to enhance transparency on the use of subsidies. The JSP is intended to facilitate access to information on the nature, size, and economic impact of subsidies with a view to facilitating dialogue on their appropriate use and design. (DOX 15/001180232, Umbrella Facility for Trade Annual Report FY23, 2023, p. 36). Another example is the support to regional integration is UFTs support in Rwanda to the implementation of the AfCFTA Trade in services Protocol, promoting greater competition and increasing access by local firms to financial services. By identifying measures contradicting the AfCFTA, the UFT informed reforms needed for the implementation, including: i) the new banking law that will allow direct branching of foreign established banks, and ii) the new personal data and privacy law that allows firms to process and store data outside of Rwanda. These reforms are expected to substantially increase the level of competition in commercial banking and telecommunication services, and potentially lower the prices and increase the range of services offered to Rwandian businesses and individuals. (DOX 15/001180232, Umbrella Facility for Trade Annual Report FY23, 2023, p. 36). Pillar 4 - Managing Shocks and Promoting Greater Inclusion. Pillar 4 aims to address the reality of trade and to make distributional impacts of trade more visible, and the objective is to help policymakers understand the impacts and minimise adjustment costs and maximise benefits. The UFT support to conducting reviews of trade legislation, and analysing and assessing economic and development priorities, have provided context based recommendations for governments on how to build resilient trade policies that include vulnerable groups such as informal sector traders and workers (DOX 15/001180232, Umbrella Facility for Trade Annual Report FY23, 2023, p. 37). On an overall level the FY 23 reporting shows that pillar 4 related targets were met or exceeded, i.e 3 developing countries adopted national trade strategies which consider poverty reduction, and 8 countries used trade impacts assessments for NonTariff Measurements that address poverty/gender linkages (DOX 15/001180232, Umbrella Facility for Trade Annual Report FY23, 2023, pp. 58). A number of activities were also carried out at country level, for example the UFT supported Vietnam in understanding trade policy and distributional labour market dynamics and their impacts on socioeconomic outcomes. The analysis found that higher export oriented manufacturing may have indirect effects of increasing informality, but also decreased inactivity and a rise in total and female employment as well as an observed increase in wages and decline in gender wage gap. Findings from this report and similar reports undertaken in Cambodia and Indonesia, together with key findings from the recent report entitled Exports to Improve Labor Markets in MENA were also presented in a workshop on Trade Flows and Labor Markets in MENA and EAP. (DOX 15/001180232, Umbrella Facility for Trade Annual Report FY23, 2023, p. 38-39. 48).

The intended effect of the development contribution is based on the World Bank Group's "twin goals" to increase shared prosperity, and the eradication of extreme poverty. According to the theory of change, more and better jobs, increased trade flows and raised productivity, contribute to increased incomes and to achieve these goals. The World Bank Group (WBG) analysis underpinning this theory of change, identifies a number of challenges that limit the possibilities of achieving these goals. Examples of challenges include weak diversification, high transaction and trading costs, limited market access, and the poor being those who are hardest hit by trade shocks and exclusion. The objective of the Umbrella Facility for Trade (UFT) is to provide support to developing countries towards integrating them in the global economy while increasing trade. It is based upon and supports the implementation of the World Banks Groups trade strategy which focuses on four main pillars: i) trade competitiveness and diversification ii) trade facilitation and transport logistics iii) market access and international trade cooperation and, iv) managing shocks and promoting greater inclusion. Through a number of different activities at both the country and the global level, the World Bank Group contributes to creating more competitive and open markets, export diversification, reduce trading costs, strengthened capacity in policy making and, not least, an increased and upgraded participation in global value chains. Activities supported by the UFT include analyses and research, technical assistance, development of methods and tools, and the establishment of partnerships and dialogues. The specific goals of the Umbrella Facility for Trade are to: increase the number of WBG projects that incorporate trade expand the testing, experimentation, research, and sharing of new ideas on trade gather, document, and disseminate results, data, and knowledge on trade related issues and increase the WBGs voice on global trade issues through enhanced global partnerships and engagements. Through the UFT support is also channeled to the WBGs Trade Facilitation Support Programme (TFSP) which form an integral part of the contribution. Its objective is to improve cross border trade environments and support the full and effective implementation of the World Trade Organizations Trade Facilitation Agreement (WTO TFA).