Trust Funds

Trust Funds complement and support the World Bank’s operational work and help deliver enhanced support to client countries.  Trust fund resources are critical to implementing the Bank’s trade work in three ways.  First, trust fund resources are a key element in implementing the expansion of the World Bank’s trade program that President Zoellick announced in November 2007 at the Aid for Trade Global Review.  Second, trust funds provide additional resources to Regional Departments to help mainstream trade into country strategies. Third, the trust fund programs are a vehicle for helping the World Bank to deliver increased aid for trade. 

PRMTR’s trust fund resources revolve around five main programs: the Multi donor Trust Fund for Trade (MDTF-TD), the Bank Netherlands Partnership Program (BNPP),  the Trade Facilitation Facility (TFF), the Global Trade and Financial Architecture (GFTA), and various DFID Trust Funds.

Multidonor Trust Fund for Trade and Development
The Multidonor Trust Fund for Trade and Development (MDTF-TD) supports global, regional, and country level activities that help to mainstream trade into country policies. The program supports work on a wide range of trade topics, including issues such as trade policy and agreements, export competitiveness, trade facilitation, behind-the-border constraints on international trade, and distributional effects of trade and trade policy reform.  Eligible activities include technical assistance, capacity building, diagnostics, research, and project preparation. This trust fund is financed by contributions from the governments of Finland, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Trade Facilitation Facility
The Trade Facilitation Facility (TFF) is a rapid-response trust fund whose objective is to help developing countries reduce trade costs and enhance their ability to move goods and services across borders rapidly, cheaply, and predictably.  It is designed to finance activities that will make immediate, direct, and effective improvements in trade facilitation systems by modernizing infrastructure, institutions, policies and improving regulations. The TFF finances activities at country, regional, and global levels including projects and project preparation activities, advisory work, and technical assistance.

Global Trade and Financial Architecture
The objective of the Global Trade and Financial Architecture (GTFA) program is to identify and promote concrete policy options for reinvigorating and strengthening the multilateral economic systems and institutions that support the process of globalization. The program supports policy oriented research programs and international events which advance dialogue on global trade and financial architecture by offering concrete policy advice that can be translated into political action and reform.

Bank Netherlands Partnership Program
The Bank Netherlands Partnership Program (BNPP) was established in June 1998 to promote more coordinated and prioritized approach in the use of trust fund resources for non-country specific activities.  The BNPP Trade Window delivers supports for the Bank’s work on trade and has the overall objective of advancing the state of knowledge and capacity building to allow developing countries to use trade as an effective lever for growth and poverty reduction.  The BNPP Trade Window supports bank- executed, multi-country activities with an emphasis on upstream research and analysis.