The Least Developed Countries Report, 2004

The Least Developed Countries Report 2004 assesses the relationship between international trade and poverty within the LDCs, and identifies national and international policies that can make trade a more effective mechanism for poverty reduction in these countries.The Report argues that international trade can play a major positive role in reducing poverty in the LDCs. However, in practice, this is not happening in many of them. In some, this failure is due to a weak trade performance, but most LDCs achieved higher export growth in the 1990s than in the 1980s. The failure of trade expansion to allow poverty reduction has been related to weak linkages between trade and economic growth. Moreover, there is a tendency for export expansion in economies with mass poverty and major financial gaps to generate exclusionary rather than socially equitable economic growth. Many LDCs are in great need of a fair multilateral trading system while remaining unable to derive much benefit from this system in the absence of meaningful special treatment of disadvantaged countries beside the general principles of liberalization.