APEC FTAAP Work Program: Multistakeholder Engagement for Trade Agreement Development

Multistakeholder engagement – the process of undertaking domestic consultations to extensively listen to a wide range of perspectives – is critical to ensure that efforts to design, negotiate, implement, and monitor trade agreements allow for trade benefits to impact all. Implemented under the APEC Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) Work Program, this project included a survey and workshop to explore how APEC economies can apply multistakeholder engagement approaches to better integrate stakeholder perspectives into trade agreement development. This report serves to convey the project outcomes. The survey findings offer perspectives from both government officials and non-government stakeholders on current multistakeholder engagement practices in APEC economies. The workshop proceedings provide case studies of effective practices, and possible next steps for APEC’s initiatives on multistakeholder engagement.