By Dr. Alex Thomas Ijjo  Senior Fellow, EPRC; Rob Marty Research Associate with AidData at the College of William and Mary and Isaac Shinyekwa Research Fellow at the EPRC. Trade liberalization  is widely regarded to be a key factor in economic development.  Its proponents argue that openness to market forces will increase the efficiency of resource allocation and lead to sustained economic development. On the basis of this belief, the World Bank and IMF have recommended market-oriented policy reforms, which developing countries have  largely implemented  over the past four decades. However, the implementation of these reforms quickly revealed a lack of capacity in many least developed countries (LDCs) to gainfully participate in liberalized global trade. This is because LDCs face many constraints to trade, including but not limited to: weak and unstable productive capacities, poor market infrastructure, and an inability to meet required high quality s...