Some of the anti-trade sentiment is the result of rising wealth inequality and stagnating real wages.
— Arancha Gonzalez
Latin Americans are all too familiar with the boom and bust cycles associated with economic populism.
For Latin American countries seeking to play a bigger role in global trade, effectively implementing trade-facilitating reforms could be an important tool in their toolkits.
Sometimes all it takes to connect entrepreneurs to overseas buyers is to get them into the same room.
ITC works to help firms in poor countries become more competitive and overcome the barriers that are keeping their goods and services out of international markets.
In my experience, what is often missing between intent and action is the knowledge and the means to actually change the way we do business or make consumer decisions.
Companies that operate across borders have the expertise SMEs need. Who better to help smallholder farmers navigate complex sustainability standards than the companies who demand - or set - them?
Full social and political engagement is impossible without economic empowerment, a point that is as true for women as it is for young people of either gender.
Creating large numbers of decent jobs for young people is critical for achieving overall development objectives, from poverty reduction to better health and education.
Sustainable production and consumption matter immensely to the people I meet every day as head of the International Trade Centre, which works with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to help them boost growth and job creation by improving their competitiveness and connecting to international markets.
Improving SME productivity translates into more and better paying jobs, distributed across less fortunate sections of the economy.
International consumers can rest assured that their quinoa purchases have benefited some of Latin America's poorest people, together with their families.
Many African smallholder farmers did not share in the 'green revolution' productivity gains driven by modern seeds and techniques, irrigation, and greater fertilizer use in Asia and Latin America in the 1960s.
The lack of livelihood opportunities in refugee camps pushes many people to embark on dangerous journeys in the quest for a better life.
The unfolding migratory crisis has become one of the most acute challenges facing the international community. Millions of lives are at stake. All of us have a responsibility to act. Collectively, we need to find solutions.
Economic policy that adheres to the tenets of orthodoxy while failing to deliver for large sections of society is doomed to fail.
Fully implementing the WTO trade facilitation agreement is one ingredient to reduce border delays and costs for traded merchandise.
What exactly is trade facilitation? In a nutshell, it is an effort to enable global trade by reducing red tape and streamline customs. In even simpler words: making it easier for companies to trade across borders.
In my job, as head of the International Trade Centre, I have the privilege to meet entrepreneurs from across the world almost on a daily basis.
Economic desperation often drives wildlife destruction like poaching or illegal logging. But trade can help create powerful financial incentives for communities to preserve the biodiversity around them.
Most people - including business leaders - want a healthy future for their children.
Entrepreneurs - both women and men - need equal and fair access to finance - to create new businesses, to reach to new markets, and to adapt to climate change.
Entrepreneurship is one of the most important drivers for job creation. Moreover, social entrepreneurship offers not only a path for young people to transform their own lives, but also a way to empower others.
While tourism is often resource-intensive, it is a major driver of poverty reduction in developing countries.
Everything we produce and consume has an impact on the environment, on social fabrics, and on the economy. This impact can be positive or negative and, frequently, some combination of the two.
Large companies everywhere tend to be more productive than small ones. But the gap in productivity is far wider in developing countries.
In the ten years leading up to 2013, quinoa prices nearly tripled on the back of skyrocketing international demand for the latest 'superfood'. The grain had traditionally been cultivated in the high Andean plateau, principally for household consumption. But as prices rose, farmers' incentive to sell it as a cash crop grew.
In their pursuit of growth and diversification, African economies should consider transforming the discourse from a focus on industrialisation to a broader one centred on value addition in agriculture, manufacturing, and services.
Connecting small and medium-sized businesses to international markets can create work for host country nationals alongside refugees, building economic growth and resilience in host communities.
The populists are right in one key area: voters want jobs and equitable growth, and can hardly be faulted for that. The challenge is to find a more inclusive growth trajectory that can be sustained economically, ecologically, and politically.
Through trade reforms, Latin American countries can boost their competitiveness in markets for goods and services.
Can trade help lift people out of poverty? It can, and it has.
Around the world, it is much more difficult for women than for men to run a successful business. Even when laws are not explicitly biased against them, companies owned and operated by women often face discrimination every step of the way, from obtaining finance to finding customers.
Consumers need more insight into the goods and services they purchase. Businesses need to produce those goods and services more sustainably.
When the International Trade Centre, the agency I head, works with German electronics giant Bosch to help Kenyan food processing companies boost their productivity and export competitiveness, we may well be creating future customers for Bosch washing machines.
Without action to de-carbonize our economies, unchecked climate change threatens to batter lives and economies around the world, hitting the poorest people hardest.
It is no coincidence that in the wake of the Arab Spring, investment in youth-related initiatives, especially related to employment, has increased sharply.
The tourism industry has considerable potential to be a sustainability role model in its role as a buyer of goods and other services, from building materials and green construction standards to farm produce.
In landlocked developing countries, geographical barriers to markets are unnecessarily accompanied by virtual ones: their e-connectivity rates are among the world's lowest.
Jobs are the main channel through which people share in - or are left out of - economic growth.
There is no intrinsic reason African countries should be importing, rather than exporting, basic staples like rice or higher value products like frozen chicken, cooking oil, or instant noodles.
Governments around the world are looking for economic growth and job creation. African economies are no exception, with increasing recognition that growth has to be built on a more diversified economic structure in order to make a lasting contribution to development.
Skills development as a means to income generation is the key to integrate vulnerable migrants into the mainstream of society and to equip them for an eventual return home.
