Nextrade hosts at WTO Aid for Trade 2022: Public-private partnerships for LDC digital trade

Nextrade Group was proud to host a dialogue "Promoting recovery through digitization and trade: Role for public-private partnerships" at the WTO's Aid for Trade meeting. View the discussion here.

The speakers included:

Anabel González, Deputy Director-General, World Trade Organization
Tina Jabeen, President, Bangladesh Startup Consortium
Lenard Koschwitz, Trade Policy Manager, Google
Hilda Kragha, Managing Director, Ringer One Africa Media, CEO, African Talent Company
Sami Lahoud, Senior Vice President, Global Partnerships and Infrastructure, Mastercard
Kati Suominen, Founder and CEO, Nextrade Group

We also wrote an article with ideas to orient these PPPs.

The session focused on the potential for public-private partnership to promote LDCs’ recovery and growth through digitization; share lessons from existing global public-private partnerships for ecommerce development and the unique challenges to operationalize these partnerships in the most vulnerable nations; and discuss concrete steps and funding needs to promptly launch these partnerships.

The timing for the dialogue was critical. The world’s least developing nations (LDCs) are facing a series of challenges to their growth, job creation and poverty reduction, such as climate change, Covid-19, and, sparked by the crisis in Ukraine, the risks of food shortages, unrest, and recession.

At the same time, Covid-19 has accelerated digitization, digital entrepreneurship, and SMEs’ adoption of digital technologies even in poor developing nations. This opens new opportunities for LDC firms to transact with customers and vendors around the world and grow their export sales, and to facilitate LDC economies’ recovery, job creation, and access to supplies.

Digitization in LDCs has also been paralleled by growing interest by leading global technology companies to promote digital development and ecommerce in the poorest nations, and to accelerate the implementation of the Global Trade Facilitation Agenda.

As a result of these trends, donors and global and local companies have a timely and compelling opportunity to join forces to promote digitization and ecommerce in LDCs.