Enhanced integrated framework

The Enhanced Integrated Framework for Trade-Related Assistance for the Least Developed Countries (commonly abbreviated as EIF) is a global development program with the objective of supporting least developed countries (LDCs) to better integrate into the global trading system and to make trade a driver for development. The multi-donor program was launched on 1 January 2007 as the successor of the Integrated Framework for Trade-Related Technical Assistance to the Least-Developed Countries (commonly abbreviated as IF), which existed from October 1997 to December 2006. The second phase of the EIF has started on 1 January 2016 and will last for 7 years.

The EIF represents a partnership between different stakeholders in international development assistance including several UN agencies, regional inter-governmental organizations and other donors. The program is supported by a multi-donor trust fund with paid-up capital of USD $165 million (as of 30 April 2012) for development interventions in 49 Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

The EIF is being promoted by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as the preferred way to provide official development assistance to LDC's as part of the global Aid for Trade Initiative.

The idea of the predecessor program, the IF, was first discussed at the First Ministerial Conference of the WTO in Singapore in December 1996. It was subsequently launched in October 1997 at the WTO's High Level Meeting on Integrated Initiatives for Least-Developed Countries' Trade Development, which was held at the WTO. It was meant as a mechanism to increase effectiveness and efficiency of trade-related technical assistance to LDCs by improving coordination between donors, beneficiary countries and providers of technical assistance. The calls for an overarching program arose from the feeling that the uncoordinated actions of these parties lead to duplication of efforts, overallocation of resources to certain technical and geographical areas, and an untapped potential for joint initiatives and information exchange.

By some, the IF is regarded as a failed program because the responsiveness of the involved parties (LDCs, development agencies, and donors) was much smaller than had been expected. Susan Prowse from the UK's Overseas Development Institute, for example, points out that LDCs and donors had different perceptions and expectations about the purpose of the IF: While LDCs expected it to be mainly a vehicle to mobilize more financial resources for development interventions, donors sought to create a mechanism to improve co-ordination. Prowse, as others, also mentions that the main flaw of the IF lay in its design, meaning, that the assistance that was channeled through the IF was not aligned to a country's overall development strategy.

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