by imposing an additional constraint on the way aid money is spent aid for trade has the potential to have a negative impact on developing countries more importantly aid for trade may not be addressing the fundamental concerns with the global trading system and aid system that gave rise to it and instead has become a means for both the aid and trade communities to paper over their weaknesses without doing much for the fundamental concerns of poor countries our proposal is to make aid and trade liberalisation work for poor countries and tied directly to specific development objectives in fact perversely the global trading system is still stacked against the poorest the areas of trade where barriers are the highest agriculture textiles etc