The World Trade Organization (WTO) has a role to play in strengthening the global trading system for development, primarily by lowering barriers to trade in goods and services and ensuring that trade rules are useful to developing countries. But greater international cooperation must complement WTO-based negotiations - in particular, concerted action outside the WTO to enhance the trade capacity of poor countries (quot;aid for tradequot;).Despite recurring rounds of trade liberalization under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT), complemented by unilateral reforms, many developing countries have not been able to integrate into the world economy. Hoekman argues that from the perspective of the poorest countries, a multipronged strategy is required to strengthen the global trading system. Moreover, much of the agenda must be addressed outside the WTO.The most important contribution the WTO can make to development is to improve market access conditions - for goods and services - and ensure that trade rules are useful to developing countries. Enhancing trade capacity requires concerted action outside the WTO (quot;aid for tradequot;) as well as unilateral actions by both industrial and developing countries to reduce antitrade biases.This paper - a product of Trade, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to investigate how the WTO can be used more effectively by developing countries to integrate into the world economy.