Trade policymaking is a challenging task in all countries and presents especially great difficulties for officials in developing countries. What may seem at first to be a purely external exercise is intimately related to national development policy as a whole and involves a series of domestic trade-offs.

This webinar, which is organized within the online course on trade policy frameworks, will explore the role of trade policy in linking international trade and sustainable development, addressing the question on how trade policy can best contribute to sustainable development, in the light of the initial contents of the online course. These include discrimination versus non-discrimination, special and differential treatment and traditional instruments of trade policy.

Special attention is given to the contemporary role of non-reciprocal trade preferences, drawing on UNCTAD's upcoming publication Trade Preferences Outlook 2024, which examines the effectiveness of non-reciprocal trade preferences in fostering developing countries' exports in today's rapidly evolving international trade landscape.

Mr. Craig VanGrasstek, the instructor of this course, will moderate the session interacting with the panel of experts, and elaborate on some of the key questions arising from the discussion or on the course class forum.