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The EPRP and the Global Mechanism’s (GM) Market Access and Trade (MAT) Programme have identified a number of synergies that could help to strengthen their interventions by leveraging their respective complementarities. The EPRP can be effective in fostering trade for products and services derived from drylands and degraded areas, thus promoting the socio-economic growth of these areas through enhanced investment and improved livelihoods of local communities. At the same time, the GM can help promote the sustainability of trade activities and related processes by mainstreaming sustainable land management (SLM) issues and United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) concerns and priorities into the EPRP methodology for opportunity studies and project development. This will facilitate the development of integrated and comprehensive trade and sector development strategies, and thus enhance resource mobilization through trade-related processes such as the IF.
Cooperation with the International Trade Centre's Export-Led Poverty Reduction Programme
The International Trade Centre’s (ITC) Export-Led Poverty Reduction Programme (EPRP) was established to link promising products and services from poor communities to domestic and international markets, in order to achieve a direct impact on the communities’ economic development.
In least developed countries (LDCs), ITC positions its interventions under the overall coordination of the Integrated Framework (IF). The IF is an international initiative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), ITC, the United Nations Convention on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO). It aims to coordinate development partners’ support to trade development in LDCs, based on identification of countries’ trade development priorities and the mainstreaming of these into national development plans and poverty reduction strategies.