| Launching a publication on the World Bank’s trade support over almost twenty years, the Bank’s InfoShop and Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) brought together a panel on March 24, 2006, at Bank headquarters, to discuss “Assessing World Bank Support for Trade, 1987–2004: An IEG Evaluation.”
The program was chaired by Kyle Peters, Sector Manager for the Bank’s IEG. The book was also introduced by Vinod Thomas, Director-General of the IEG. Yvonne Tsikata, Lead Economist for IEG, discussed some of the World Bank’s trade history, classifying it into three phases: an active phase with much trade infrastructure work, a decline in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the most recent advocacy period, with an emphasis on trade facilitation. She also talked about the book’s findings, noting that trade-related investments performed well within the Bank’s portfolio, but that the Bank had ignored external and social influences on trade, although they have now reversed that trend.
Uri Dadush, Director of International Trade for the Bank, made a few comments on the book, including a defense of the Bank’s work on trade shocks. Hans Peter Lankes, Trade Policy Division Chief for the International Monetary Fund, asked whether there was still an existing trade policy, and noted a need to act within the window of opportunity rather than wait and overanalyze. The audience questioned the panel about reactive reforms, the poverty reduction strategy papers, and textile trade shocks.
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