More than 100 members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), including many developing countries, are currently negotiating a Multilateral Framework for Investment Facilitation for Development, which should help to improve the predictability and transparency of regulatory frameworks as well as technical processes in the implementation of investment projects. This multilateral framework should be particularly development-friendly and increase investment flows in developing countries and thus contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. The Investment Facilitation Index of the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) shows that developing countries are currently implementing comparatively few investment facilitation measures. It is these countries that can particularly benefit from a WTO framework. However, developing countries need technical and financial assistance in order to be able to participate effectively in the negotiations and to be able to implement the measures decided later. Against this background, the International Trade Centre (ITC) and DIE launched the „Investment Facilitation for Development“ project, which accompanies the WTO negotiations. The project aims to build negotiating capacities in developing countries, to pass on practical experience of investment promotion agencies and companies as well as empirical knowledge from academic experts to the delegates and to promote public discussions about the WTO negotiations. The virtual capacity building workshops, seminars and webinars that ITC and DIE have been implementing since the beginning of 2020 are receiving a lot of interest, especially from WTO delegates and decision-makers in developing countries. The active participation of WTO ambassadors, delegates and high-ranking representatives of the WTO secretariat show that the ITC/DIE project provides important impulses for the design of the multilateral framework in support of sustainable development.
