The governments of Latin America and the Caribbean have made trade-building efforts a key part of their development agenda, given the broad consensus on the important role played by trade in development policy. Although trade is known to provide opportunities to increase the income of the poor, opening up these opportunities depends on a range of domestic factors which complement trade policy and are equally important for generating growth and reducing inequality. The Division of International Trade and Integration of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has approached these issues through the project Poverty, trade policy and complementary policies, carried out in cooperation with the Spanish International Cooperation Agency for Development (AECID). The project was aimed at building capacities within the region's governments to formulate foreign-trade-related strategies that can boost poverty reduction efforts and to craft complementary policies to enable the poor to benefit from the opportunities created by regional and international trade.