Trade and Sustainable Development: Options for follow-up and review of the trade-related elements of the Post-2015 Agenda and Financing for Development

This research paper by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) maps trade-related elements within the draft Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Financing for Development (FfD) outcome document. It proposes a three-level architecture for follow-up and review—national, regional, and global—to ensure that trade policies are coherent with sustainable development objectives. The authors argue that because trade's contribution to the post-2015 Agenda is diffuse, a coordinated review process involving existing multilateral and regional mechanisms is essential to facilitate learning and policy improvement.

• The authors identify six thematic clusters of trade-related elements in the draft SDGs and FfD outcome: 1) subsidies and commodities trade, 2) access to water, energy, and medicines, 3) economic diversification, global value chains, and trade facilitation, 4) illegal extraction and trade in natural resources, hazardous chemicals, and waste, 5) the multilateral trading system and regional/investment agreements, and 6) policy coherence for sustainable development.
• The proposed review architecture consists of three levels: national self-assessments every four years; regional peer reviews to facilitate learning among countries in similar circumstances; and global assessments via the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) to review systemic progress and trade-offs.
• The World Trade Organization (WTO) is identified as the most comprehensive body for trade-related peer review, specifically through its Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM), which could align its reporting schedule with the four-year SDG national review cycle.
• The paper suggests that the WTO's Trade Policy Review (TPR) process could be augmented to explicitly ask members if they have integrated trade policy into their national sustainable development plans.
• To manage the diffuse nature of trade data and reporting, the authors propose the creation of an inter-agency task force on trade to provide analytical synthesis of reports for the HLPF, potentially coordinated by the WTO.
• The document highlights a gap in the Post-2015 Agenda regarding the explicit reduction of trade costs, which the authors argue is the most critical goal for developing countries.
• Existing mechanisms for reviewing illegal trade in natural resources often reside outside traditional trade systems, relying on bodies like the Basel Convention for hazardous waste and CITES for endangered species.
• The authors emphasize that the purpose of these review mechanisms is not 'evaluation' or sanction, but rather the sharing of experiences to facilitate learning and policy change.

APA

Tipping, A., & Wolfe, R. (2015). Trade and Sustainable Development: Options for follow-up and review of the trade-related elements of the Post-2015 Agenda and Financing for Development. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/trade-sustainable-development-options-post-2015-agenda.pdf

Chicago

Tipping, Alice, and Robert Wolfe. Trade and Sustainable Development: Options for follow-up and review of the trade-related elements of the Post-2015 Agenda and Financing for Development. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2015. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/trade-sustainable-development-options-post-2015-agenda.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Tipping |first1=Alice |last2=Wolfe |first2=Robert |title=Trade and Sustainable Development: Options for follow-up and review of the trade-related elements of the Post-2015 Agenda and Financing for Development |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=June 2015 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/trade-sustainable-development-options-post-2015-agenda.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{tipping2015trade, author = {Tipping, Alice and Wolfe, Robert}, title = {{Trade and Sustainable Development: Options for follow-up and review of the trade-related elements of the Post-2015 Agenda and Financing for Development}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2015}, month = jun, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/trade-sustainable-development-options-post-2015-agenda.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }