Facing global climate change, increasing natural resource degradation and rising environmental pollution, both African governments and private sector actors are increasingly favouring green industrialisation plans. These plans aim to a provide options for a late developing continent in an era of increasing concern over climate and sustainability.
The event will discuss questions such as whether multilateral trade rules, including intellectual property rights protection help or hinder efforts to industrialise; what are the inherent biases of the international financial system; how Africa's trade relationships with its two largest trading partners, the EU and China can be made to work for Africa's transformation; and what role can the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) play?
The discussion will be followed by a drinks reception.
Speaker
Dr Carlos Lopes is a Professor at the Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town, Visiting Professor at Sciences Po, Paris, and a Chatham House Associate Fellow. During 2017, he was a Visiting Fellow of the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford. He belongs to the boards of about a dozen institutions and chairs the African Climate Foundation one. Professor Lopes has occupied several leadership positions across the United Nations system, including Policy Director for Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa. He is a prolific writer and features regularly in the mainstream and major African media.
Chair
David Luke (@DavidLukeTrade) is Professor in Practice and Strategic Director at the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa, LSE. Specialising in African trade policy and trade negotiations, Professor Luke has decades of experience from a career spanning a tenured appointment at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, and assignments at the African Union, the UN Development Programme and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). At the ECA’s African Trade Policy Centre, Professor Luke and his team were instrumental in the preparation of the protocols that make up the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement.