Our daily contact with business executives and export
strategy-makers over the course of four decades has given us a
unique perspective and experience. We are known as a practical
agency that has embraced reform, encourages partnerships and
fosters innovation.
ITC's vision
- To be a recognized centre of excellence for trade
development
- To help developing countries export more competitively
- To be pragmatic in its approach and achieve widest impact
- To foster a supportive, stimulating and intellectually
rewarding environment for staff
In the past 40 years, globalization has brought trade to everyone's
backyard. Yet only a handful of developing countries have managed
to seize the potential of trade for development. In today's world,
our mandate is more relevant than ever.
ITC's goals
- Multilateral trading system.
Facilitate the integration of developing and transition economy
firms into the multilateral trading system.
- Trade development strategies. Support
national efforts to design and implement trade development
strategies.
- Trade support services. Strengthen
key trade support services, both public and private.
- Sectoral performance. Improve export
performance in sectors of critical importance and opportunity.
- Competitiveness. Foster international
competitiveness within the business community as a whole and among
small and medium-sized enterprises in particular.
Today, trade is recognized as an avenue for development, and many
organizations support trade as a part of their work. Yet ITC
remains the only international organization focused solely on trade
development for developing and transition economies. We remain
specialized, focused, flexible and client-oriented. To achieve our
mandate, we work in partnership with national, regional and
international bodies around the world.
Our ultimate clients are export-oriented firms, especially small
and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries. Our aim is to
deliver relevant, world-class trade development services, in
partnership with others, so that we serve as a catalyst to help
countries create better jobs, and raise income, for their people. A
complementary publication for ITC's 40th anniversary showcases
examples of our work.
Our role among international organizations
ITC shares the social development goals of the United Nations (UN),
the Bretton Woods institutions (the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund), the World Trade Organization (WTO)
and, more generally, of the international community. ITC
contributes to the UN's Millennium Development Goals, specifically
to the goals relating to developing a global partnership for
development, reducing poverty, promoting gender equality and
ensuring environmental sustainability. We advise business on making
the most of an open trading system; attend to the specific trade
development needs of least developed countries (LDCs); help
countries apply the benefits of new technologies; provide support
to women entrepreneurs; and promote environmentally-friendly export
initiatives.
ITC's trade development approach reflects its emphasis on being a
practical agency. We are a technical cooperation organization that
builds national capacity through trade-related technical assistance
programmes. This approach has been acknowledged in WTO's Doha
Ministerial Declaration and in the Monterrey Consensus (the outcome
of the International Conference on Financing for
Development).
ITC's technical programmes
- Strategic and operational market research
- Business advisory services
- Trade information management
- Export training capacity development
- Sector-specific product and market development
- Trade in services
- International purchasing and supply chain management
Complementarity
ITC is the joint technical cooperation agency of the United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and WTO for business
aspects of trade development. The three Geneva-based organizations
play a complementary role in trade development, and cooperation
between our organizations is close:
- UNCTAD is the global forum for the integrated treatment of
trade and development and the related issues of finance,
investment, technology and sustainable development.
- WTO is the platform to negotiate multilateral trade rules,
monitor their implementation and handle trade disputes.
- ITC handles strategic and operational aspects of trade
development, focusing on exports.
How does this work in practice? Let us take, as an example,
technical assistance for trade negotiations. UNCTAD helps
governments develop local capacities to formulate trade negotiation
positions. WTO disseminates and explains rules and agreements, and
how to implement them from a legal standpoint. ITC clarifies the
business implications of multilateral trade agreements and explains
to exporters in developing and transition economies how they can
benefit from trade rules.
ITC facts and figures
What we do
Mission: Trade development,
focusing on export growth.
Clients: Business sectors of developing
and transition economies. Some 40% of our programme delivery
supports LDCs.
Who we are
Staff: 213
Consultants: 800 consultancy assignments,
with a majority from developing and transition economies.
How we operate
Funding: US$ 49 million
Sources: UN and WTO finance ITC's regular
programme equally. Donor governments and civil society
organizations finance specific projects, based on demand from
beneficiary countries.
ITC's approach to trade-related technical assistance
ITC maintains a three-track approach to delivering technical
support.
- First track: A
"product-network" approach ensures global
coverage. ITC researches and develops "generic" tools and "best
practice" methodologies in response to global competitiveness
issues. National partners adapt them to local circumstances.
Currently, ITC maintains "product-networks" in over 120 developing
and transition economies.
- Second track: ITC participates in
multi-agency technical assistance initiatives
(such as the Integrated Framework for Trade-related Technical
Assistance to Least Developed Countries and the Joint Integrated
Technical Assistance Programme) to help developing countries
integrate into the multilateral trading system and to "mainstream"
trade into overall development.
- Third track: ITC delivers
tailor-made support, involving one or more
specialized programmes, to countries and institutions. It develops
them with national partners, based on a detailed needs analysis, to
identify export opportunities for specific sectors and strengthen
the national trade support network.
Have you visited us lately?
http://www.intracen.org
For general information about ITC programmes,
projects and services, see our web site, http://www.intracen.org,
where you can find:
- ITC's Compendium of Tools, Services and
Programmes
- Annual reports
- Trade Forum magazine
- ITC press releases
- ITC E-shop
For more information about ITC's programmes and
tools listed in this publication, see the introductory article for
each theme in the "Trade Topics" (go to left-hand navigation bar).
Then click on the initiatives listed under "How ITC Can
Help".