Promoting Inclusive Economic Transformation through GVC Participation: The Role of Aid for Trade and Private Sustainability Standards

This event will discuss how the Aid for Trade initiative could be leveraged to help developing countries participate more effectively in global value chains and link this participation to advancing Sustainable Development Goals. This will include discussions on facilitating compliance with the growing number of private sustainability standards in value chains and, more broadly, on the extent to which regulations and standards can affect sustainable development outcomes for developing countries in the context of value chains.

Although many stakeholders have greatly benefited from globalisation over recent decades, these gains are not automatic, the sustainable development impact of value chain is likely to differ depending on the geography and the sector of the value chain as well as the power dynamics within the value chain. The linkages between Global Value Chains (GVCS) and the achievement of sustainable development goals and inclusion are a maze of complex interlinkages and cannot be viewed in isolation. The potential trade-offs occurring between the economic, social and environmental aspects comprising sustainability need to be addressed in a comprehensive and dynamic manner. This session will discuss how participation into GVCs can help developing countries achieve inclusive economic transformation. Given their rising importance in global production structures, the session will review the impacts – both positive and negative – that regulations/standards have on social and environmental dynamics within GVCs and assess the extent to which they can lead to sustainable development outcomes.