The dedication was additionally marked at a brief ceremony attended by WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and EIF Executive Director Ratnakar Adhikari, who had been joined by EU Ambassador João Aguiar Machado and Paz Velasco Velazquez, Head of the Trade, Investment Climate, Entrepreneurship and Value Chains Unit on the Directorate-General for International Partnerships of the European Commission.
Ms Velasco Velazquez stated: “The EU has been a dependable accomplice to the EIF from the very starting, and we proceed to face with LDCs as they combine into the worldwide financial system. Under the EU’s Global Gateway technique, our dedication to sustainable and inclusive financial progress stays as excessive as ever. With Phase Three placing funding on the forefront, and with the EIF uniquely positioned to deal with LDCs’ wants, we’re hopeful that this new section will likely be very profitable.”
WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala welcomed the announcement, noting: “We are very grateful for the EU’s support to the EIF, which comes at just the right time. LDCs need stable and predictable partnerships to strengthen their trade capacities and seize new opportunities despite today’s global challenges. This pledge is a signal of confidence in the EIF and in the power of trade to deliver real impact for people’s lives and livelihoods.”
EIF Executive Director Ratnakar Adhikari added: “This beneficiant contribution from the European Union provides us vital momentum as we put together to begin EIF Phase Three. It underscores the European Union’s longstanding management in Aid for Trade and strengthens our potential to offer catalytic and transformative help to LDCs within the years forward.”
This new pledge builds on earlier commitments by a variety of funding companions that had been introduced in June 2025 in Sevilla, Spain, on the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development. It supplies additional momentum in the direction of EIF Phase Three, which is able to run from October 2025 to December 2031 in alignment with the UN Doha Programme of Action for LDCs. The subsequent section goals to mobilize at the least USD 200 million to ship catalytic and transformative commerce help to LDCs.
Since its launch, the EIF has been the one world Aid for Trade framework devoted solely to serving to LDCs use commerce as a driver of sustainable financial improvement and poverty alleviation.
More info on the EIF and its work is out there here.
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