Trade in Services for Development (TS4D)
Strengthening regulatory frameworks and institutions
Sound domestic regulation is critical to realizing the full benefits of open services markets. Indeed, regulation plays a central role in shaping the structure and performance of services markets. Poorly designed or overly restrictive regulations can stifle competition, deter investment, raise trade costs and limit consumer choice.
- Addressing data gaps in services trade
- Helping developing economies and LDCs participate more fully in policy discussions on trade in services
- Strengthening regulatory frameworks and institutions
- Promoting economic diversification, particularly through digital services trade
- Addressing key constraints and improving services skills of workers
Conversely, well-designed regulatory frameworks can promote inclusive and competitive markets, enhance service quality and affordability, and support sustainable trade opening.
Many developing economies face institutional constraints in developing, implementing and reviewing services regulations. Addressing these issues requires technical expertise, appropriate tools, and mechanisms for reform coordination. Robust regulatory institutions are also essential to ensure that trade opening contributes to sustainable development.
Capacity-building activities
The World Bank helps developing economies to undertake regulatory audits and assessments. To advance this work, it has developed the Regulatory Assessment of Services Trade and Investment (RASTI) toolkit to help policy-makers assess regulations, streamline regulatory frameworks to improve efficiency and establish a sound process for introducing new regulations.
The World Bank also provides cross-sectoral support for regulatory frameworks, such as the Technical Assistance Project for Institutional and Regulatory Reform for Private Sector Development: Development Projects: Technical Assistance for Institutional & Regulatory Reform for Private Sector Development Project - P057767
Capacity-building activities, programmes, and resources by other international organizations and development banks
ITC:
- ARISE Plus Lao: Undertaking tourism and transport regulatory assessments to identify barriers, develop reforms for the domestic regulatory framework and produce best practice guides for tourism services regulation. More information
- Iraq – BEIT: Undertaking regulatory mapping for construction and housing services, to identify restrictions and support domestic policy/regulatory/procedural reforms to boost competitiveness of subsectors, including through related capacity building on trade in services, and facilitating public-private dialogues. More information
Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP):
- ESCAP Regional Digital Trade Integration (RDTI) Initiative: this focuses on fostering evidence-based digital trade policymaking and regulatory alignment in the Asia-Pacific and beyond. The initiative has resulted in the development of the Regional Digital Trade Integration Index (RDTII) 2.0, notably in collaboration with the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the UN Economic
- Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); it covers more than 130 economies across three regions. An Interactive RDTII regulatory database and dashboard has been established by ESCAP.
Under this initiative, between 2023 and 2025, ESCAP has provided technical assistance to Kazakhstan, Mongolia, the Philippines and Pakistan to develop national roadmaps for digital trade integration. Ongoing activities involve the Asia-Pacific Digital Trade Regulatory Review, which provides an overview of the Asia-Pacific Digital Policy Landscape. Forthcoming outputs include analytical reports based on ESCAP’s enhanced RDTII version 2.1 and policy briefs for 48 Asia-Pacific economies. This initiative is intended to be a living platform which can support researchers and policymakers in understanding the region's complex digital trade policy environment.
ECLAC:
In collaboration with the OECD, ECLAC is supporting member countries in assessing their services trade restriction in broad terms for digital services and for specific sectors. Results can be reviewed at https://sim.oecd.org/ and https://dtri.uneca.org/eclac/trade-restriction. These results have been analysed and made accessible for member countries through some publications (see, for example, https://repositorio.cepal.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/f9dba773-1dfb-45fd-b627-d329090a011f/content and https://repositorio.cepal.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/cf8908c5-314f-4b8d-90e4-a866c9b13232/content)
Related resources
| Author | Title | Link |
|---|---|---|
| United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD) | Services Policy Reviews Covers Morocco, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Bangladesh, Uganda, Paraguay, Lesotho and others. |
Get resource |
| WBG | Regulatory Assessment Toolkit (2014) | Get resource |
| Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) | The Latin American Regulatory Environment for Digital Trade (2022) | Get resource |