Few things about trade are certain, but some are

The only thing certain about the future is uncertainty.

What goes for the wider world goes for trade, as well. Despite warnings that we were ill-prepared for a pandemic, the outbreak of the novel coronavirus took us by surprise. The impact on trade was swift and dramatic: in the second quarter of 2020, when much of the world was under lockdown, trade volumes plunged by 15 percent year-on-year.

Few would have guessed at the time that within less than a year, by the first quarter of 2021, global merchandize trade volumes would surpass pre-pandemic levels and reach new record highs. Restraint in the use of trade protectionism, together with major fiscal and monetary support, helped drive the economic recovery from the pandemic. In October last year, World Trade Organization economists upgraded their forecast for trade, projecting that the merchandize trade volume would increase by 10.8 percent in 2021, and 4.7 percent in 2022.

We don't know what form the next crisis will take－financial crises, climate-related disasters, cyberattacks, or another pandemic. But if the past is a guide to the future, we can bet that trade, and international economic cooperation, will help us weather it.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, trade has been a force for good. Despite initial disruptions, some ongoing export restrictions, and supply chain dislocations, trade has been a lifeline to access food and vital medical supplies.

Last year, even as the value of global merchandize trade shrank by 7.6 percent, the value of trade in medical goods rose by 16 percent－and by nearly 50 percent for personal protective equipment. Trade in agricultural products held stable. Supply chains helped ramp up the production of urgently needed goods－think back to how masks went from being scarce and expensive to abundant and affordable.

As scientists developed vaccines at record speed, multi-country supply chains came together to provide the specialized inputs and capital goods needed for vaccine production at scale.

While vaccine production volumes remain far below what we need, particularly for people in low-income countries and Africa, it is hard to see how we would have administered billions of doses (6.4 billion doses by Oct 6) without trade.

Pfizer/BioNTech's vaccine supply chain cuts across 19 countries, as does Moderna's. For AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, the numbers are 15 and 12, respectively.

At the WTO, we have responded to the pandemic by working with COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers and all other stakeholders to keep supply chains functioning, boost vaccine production volumes, and in the longer term, diversify global vaccine manufacturing so that supplies are more resilient and more equitable.

Trade has an important role to play in addressing challenges we know we must grapple with, from climate change to pandemic preparedness. But for the WTO to continue to deliver on its founding objectives－to enhance living standards, create jobs and support sustainable development－its rulebook needs to be reformed and updated to reflect changing business realities and social and environmental imperatives.

Three trends are clearly discernible. The future of trade will be about services and digital. The future of trade must be green, responsive to problems of the global commons such as climate change, and the sustainability of our oceans. And the future of trade must be more inclusive－across countries and within them.

The pandemic has highlighted the importance of services and the digital economy. For many companies, including micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, e-commerce has been a lifeline. Services trade, much of it digitally enabled, is growing much faster than trade in goods. Between 2010 and 2019, global exports of commercial services grew by 57 percent, versus 25 percent for merchandize trade.

African e-commerce companies like Jumia have boomed, with total payment value nearly doubling between the first half of 2019 and the first half of 2020.

But more can and must be done. Closing the digital divide will make the internet accessible to all. New international frameworks for services and digital trade would create new opportunities for businesses of all sizes, enhancing predictability and lowering regulatory costs. Here at the WTO, multilateral negotiations on e-commerce and streamlining domestic regulation in services have advanced rapidly, and important agreements are within reach.

There is absolutely no doubt that the future of trade must be green. The younger generation, the future producers and consumers, insist on it. Global leaders have committed to getting to net-zero emissions, and the WTO can maximize the potential of trade to help them get there.

Reviving negotiations to liberalize trade in environmental goods and services would help lower the cost of getting to net zero. The last such initiative was shelved in 2016 because politics trumped the environment. It's time to try again.

The International Energy Agency and the European Commission suggest that achieving net zero by 2050 could cost about 2 percent of global GDP. While rapid increases in investment could lead to supply shortages and bottlenecks, but open, predictable trade would help reduce any "greenflationary" pressures that would raise the cost of emissions mitigation.

With fragmented approaches to carbon pricing almost certain to become a source of trade tensions－the World Bank identifies 67 different carbon pricing instruments at the subnational, national and regional levels, with prices varying from less than $1 to $137 per ton－the WTO and other international organizations can develop common methodologies for thinking about the carbon embodied in traded goods.

And finally, we need to extend the benefits of trade to the low-income countries, and the poor people in better-off countries, that were mostly left out of the global supply chains in the 30 years leading up to the pandemic. Enterprises are now shifting value chain operations to countries such as Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Turkey, Bangladesh and Ethiopia, in order to lower their production costs, diversify risks, and be closer to their consumers.

We need to extend this "re-globalization" to hitherto poorly integrated parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. We also need to expand opportunities for people in all countries－women and smaller businesses especially－to connect to global supply networks. Domestic social, educational and economic policies have an indispensable role to play in ensuring that people benefit from economic change, whether as a result of trade or technology.

Trade will help us face the future, whatever it holds in store. But for this to be possible, trade policies must deliver for people, or else we will face more backlashes that offer anger but no solutions to genuine economic grievances. A reformed and revitalized WTO has a major role to play in ensuring people-centric trade.

Project Syndicate

The author, a former finance minister and foreign minister of Nigeria, is director-general of the World Trade Organization.

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