Why trade will be the heart of sustainable development agenda beyond 2015?

Opinion article by: Andrea Herrera Guaman* (aherrera@eafit.edu.co)

Business Management student at Universidad EAFIT, Colombia

Although discussions about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are still going and the call for starting the Millennium Development Goals just began, it looks like there is a topic that is taking a bigger relevance and importance nowadays: the role of the international trade as an “enabler for achieving a broad range of social, economic and environmental development goals through promoting inclusive and sustainable economic growth”(UNCTAD, 2014).

While for many people and open and multilateral trade seems to be a non- favorable solution in issues like poverty eradication and achieving equity around the world, UNTACD thinks the opposite, considering that Governments can use several means in transforming the world’s economy and growth by always keeping a “rights-based approach to development” and a sustainable vision of those implemented means (UNTACD, 2014) .

The real issue about this topic is make possible that both developed and developing countries take advantage of the opportunities that are offered for this trade liberalization such as: more an better jobs, improvement in health care and standards of living, efficient use of the available resources, etc, all of this in order to reach a sustainable development and promote and structural transformation in all levels.

As for now it is necessary to wait how conclude the Millennium Development Goals' discussions and what will be its legacy for the MDGs in order to see which will be the route that this new agenda will take.

Reference

UNCTAD (2014). unctad.org | UNCTAD places trade at the heart of sustainable development agenda beyond 2015.  Available here.