The Committee on Trade and Development, part of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) serves as a focal point for consideration and coordination of work on development in the WTO and its relationship to development-related activities in other multilateral agencies.

Among other things, its role is:

• to keep the participation of developing country members in the multilateral trading system under continual review;
• to provide guidelines for, and to review periodically, the technical cooperation activities of the WTO;
• and to review periodically the application of special provisions in WTO agreements and related Ministerial Decisions in favour of developing country members – known as special and differential treatment (S&DT) provisions.

A meeting of the Committee on Trade and Development held on the 26th March 2025 examined special and differential treatment provisions for developing economies, e-commerce, WTO technical assistance and capacity-building and duty-free quota-free market access for least-developed countries (LDCs). At a dedicated session on small economies held on the next day, members discussed a WTO Secretariat report on the challenges and opportunities for small economies in e-commerce.

Members elected Ambassador Mzukisi Qobo of South Africa as the chair of the Committee on Trade and Development and re-elected Ambassador Ib Petersen (Denmark) as chair of the Sub-Committee on Least- Developed Countries.

A full update of the committee meeting is available here
 

Developing Countries

Developing countries represent two-thirds of WTO members. Supporting their greater integration into global trade is a major priority for the WTO. WTO agreements have special provisions aimed at helping developing countries implement WTO rules while WTO technical assistance and other WTO-supported initiatives are aimed at increasing their capacity to trade.
 

Building trade capacity

Helping developing countries participate more fully in the global trading system is an important aim of the WTO.

The Aid for Trade initiative helps developing countries improve their capacity to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the multilateral trading system.

The WTO's trade-related technical assistance activities provide training to officials from developing countries to support trade capacity-building.

The WTO also supports the Enhanced Integrated Framework - the Aid for Trade programme for LDCs - and the Standards and Trade Development Facility.
 

You can read more here on the work of the Committee and the WTO on Trade & Development