Fostering the positive linkages between trade and sustainable development

Trade4SD is a 4-year project devoted to research on a topic which is high on the domestic as well as multilateral, EU and bilateral trade policy agenda. The ambition of the project is to explore and foster the positive linkages between trade and sustainable development is to provide policy recommendations for the creation of new opportunities for agents involved in the global, regional and national agri-food value chains, and to define conditions for sustainable livelihoods of farm producers in the EU and developing partner countries.The premise of this proposal is that trade has the power to produce positive outcomes when trade related policies are designed in a way to promote access to markets, fair prices and standards of living for farmers, as well as alleviating rural poverty and ensuring the application of sustainable farming practices. Addressing the relation between trade and SDGs requires an integrated approach to trade and domestic policymaking under an umbrella of inclusive governance. The main objective of TRADE4SD is to identify new opportunities to foster positive sustainability impacts of trade supported by improved trade policy at national, EU and multilateral level, including WTO modernization, and increased coherence across agricultural, energy, climate, environmental and nutrition policies to achieve SDGs.

TRADE4SD was designed to be an inter-disciplinary research project to be carried out by a consortium of researchers from thirteen universities, research institutes and companies from ten countries focusing on how trade can contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The premise of TRADESD is that trade has the power to produce positive outcomes when policies – both at international and domestic level – are designed in a way to promote access to markets, fair prices and standards of living for farmers, as well as alleviating rural poverty and ensuring sustainable farming practices. Addressing the relation between trade and SDGs requires an integrated approach to policy-making and inclusive governance.

During the first 36 months, we reviewed previous studies concerning the interactions between trade and sustainability and have identified a system of most relevant indicators and were also able to visualise results of the literature review and the links identified in a user-friendly tool at the website. We have also analysed recent trends and determinants of participation in global value chains. Moreover, we have also explored and selected a number of datasets to construct measures of the ‘SDG content’ of trade agreements, as well as data on various SDG indicators. At the same time, we have selected a list of SDG outcome indicators that can be tightly linked to the information on the content of trade agreements in terms of SDG-related provisions. We have also conducted several case studies on how the SDGs are currently included in preferential trade agreements, elaborated a bilateral measure of distance on pesticides and antibiotics trade and have given policy recommendations for increasing the contribution of multilateral trade rules to global sustainability.

Moreover, an overview of current modelling of SDGs related policy instruments and indicators were given to measure the success or degree of progress to reach different SDGs and scenario specifications were also done regarding all the three pillars of sustainability. We have also modelled social and distributional impacts of trade and sustainability policies together with their environmental impacts. In terms of field work, we have conduced several case studies, surveys and organised many local stakeholder meetings to better understand the sustainability impacts of trade in various value chains like cocoa, coffee and cashew. Our team has already started analysing the coherence of EU policies in terms of trade as well as gathered insights from stakeholders on trade policy modelling.

All of our deadlines related to deliverables and milestones have been met.

TRADE4SD aims to take an evidence based, genuinely integrated, and participatory approach to research in order to identify, quantify and analyse the complex links between trade and sustainability, as well as to propose innovative options to trade to meet the SDGs globally. In doing so, TRADE4SD goes beyond the state of art in a number of significant ways. The project is specifically designed in order to ensure that potential gaps between the different quantitative modelling approaches employed in the project are avoided. This collaborative approach is necessary to ensure that all elements of quantitative work can provide results consistent with each other but across the broadest range of dimensions possible.

Progress beyond the-state-of-the-art will be achieved through:

• Improved capacity of existing models through linkages, integration and combination of sustainability indicators;
• Developing a new database of core indicators of direct and indirect linkages between trade and sustainability;
• Developing tools to visualise complex linkages to facilitate understanding by stakeholders and civil society organisations;
• Combining amd extending existing models and simulations;
• Testing several new policy measures which can contribute to the achievement of selected SDGs and their effect on different countries, regions as well as on the producers, consumers and taxpayers;
• Revealing the effect of different incentives to farmers and traders to implement more sustainable practices;
• Revealing how learning by doing may change investment behaviour towards the achievement of sustainability goals;
• Showing cases where EU bilateral could be made more effective and where WTO may fill a gap if it modernises; and
• Providing a clear understanding on the participation of developing countries to local and global agri-food value chains.