African Trade Policy Programme
Throughout human history, trade has played a key role in generating wealth and growth. This has been achieved through productive processes that leverage comparative (and competitive) advantage for the exchange of goods and services. Economic thought, theory, and practice attribute a key role to trade in transforming economies and societies.
All African countries have strong potential for adding value to goods, to services, to resources that they produce…and being part of regional and global chains.
Today, trade is recognised as a driver of growth, sustainable development and poverty reduction. But this is not automatic. To take advantage of this potential requires trade policies that are dynamic, inclusive and responsive to both opportunities and constraints in constantly changing national, regional and global contexts.
The African Trade Policy Programme, hosted by the , brings together international expertise on African trade policy, trade negotiations, and trade policy formulation and implementation, to evaluate and contribute to trade policies that can help African countries to better leverage trade as a vehicle for inclusive development. The Programme team has extensive experience in working with countries, development partners and international organisations across trade policy research, design, innovation and implementation. At its heart is the desire to make trade policy work better for Africa.
The programme has four main areas of focus:
- Analytical work on African trade policy: Providing data-driven evaluations of trade negotiations and policy choices to make sense of the continent’s major trade challenges. These include commodity dependence, competitiveness, and how African countries engage with often unconducive international trade rules that distort global markets. This work involves in-depth analysis of intra-African trade initiatives, such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA); trade between African countries and their major trading partners; informal and formal trade patterns; trade and inclusion; and emerging shifts such as digitalisation and the decarbonisation of international trade.
- Consultancy services: The programme engages in consultancy activities on various aspects of African trade.
- Outreach and capacity-building: The programme provides support to African universities to (a) engage teachers and researchers and help overcome knowledge gaps (b) advise on teaching materials (c) facilitate further training (d) support research in African trade policy and (e) carry out related activities.
- Distribution and promotion: The programme engages media outlets, generates publications, reports and policy recommendations, and organises specific events to share research results.
The objectives of the programme are:
- To better understand the impact of the African Continental Free Trade Area, including where additional policy interventions and measures can generate results with stronger impacts on livelihoods and different parts of African societies.
- To significantly extend the current knowledge base on African trade policy for more informed decision-making on trade as a driver of sustainable development at various levels of policy-making.
- To demystify African trade policy as a specialised esoteric activity confined to a few experts to generate a better and broad-based understanding of how trade impacts the lives of ordinary Africans and the continent’s sustainable development aspirations.
- To produce easily accessible information on an open access basis on Africa’s trade data, trade agreements, and up-to-date information on current trade negotiations with annotated guidance to enhance intelligibility.
- To empower policy-makers, stakeholders, scholars, and others to interrogate the effectiveness of trade agreements, including the implementation dimensions in relation to sustainable development, inclusion and poverty reduction objectives.
Publications
- Impact of geopolitical dynamics on global trade: the case of the African automotives sector. ODI Global. (2025)
- How Africa Eats: Trade, Food Security and Climate Risks LSE Press (2025)
- Research Handbook on Trade Law and Development. Chpt 18: Implementing the AfCFTA: A sluggish start. David Luke and Max Mendez-Parra. (2025)
- Trade and Climate Sustainability Briefs 2025 (with the Africa Climate Foundation)
- How Africa-Europe Trade Arrangements Can Harmonize, Not Collide. David Luke Chapter 5 in David McNair ed., Why Europe Needs Africa (Carnegie Endowment, 2024).
- Unfinished Business on Voluntary Carbon Markets – A New Frontier for Trade Cooperation. David Luke and Cecilia Wandiga in Reviving Multilateralism – From Vision to Action on Trade and Sustainability at the WTO (Forum on Trade, Environment and the SDGs, 2024).
- Maria Ogbugo, David Luke, Faten Aggad, Oluwasola Omoju, William Davis. Navigating climate action: Assessing the economic impacts and trade-offs of a shipping carbon tax for African states. (2024)
- Aggad, F., Luke, D., Macleod, J., Omojo, O., Guepie, G., Ven, C. (2023). Implications for African Countries of a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism in the EU.
- Luke, D. (2023). Submission to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero addressing carbon leakage risk to support decarbonisation.
- Luke, D. eds. (2023). How Africa Trades.
- LSE Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa White Paper on African Sustainable Industrialisation: The Imperative of Upgrading Industrial Policymaking Itself.
- Women, Peace, and Security and the African Continental Free Trade Area: Consolidating the Nexus.Masters, L., van Wyk, J., Mthembu, P.South African Foreign Policy Review Volume 4: Ramaphosa and a New Dawn for South African Foreign Policy (2022).
- UK trade approach towards developing countries: policy submission to the UK Parliamentary Enquiry Committee (March 2022).
Blogs
- Why is food insecurity worsening in Africa? (2025) LSE Review of Books
- Red lines for Africa’s green new deal. The African Report. David Luke (2024)
- Minéraux critiques: trois questions stratégiques pour les pays Africains (Critical Minerals: three strategic issues for African countries). L’Afrique des Idées. David Luke (2024).
- Why African countries struggle to exercise their agency in the World Trade Organization. Colette Van der Ven & David Luke. (May 2023).
- Five Reasons Why Agro-Industrialisation is Essential for Africa’s Sustainable Economic Transformation. David Luke & E. Olawale Ogunkola. (January 2023).
- Breathing Life Into the AfCFTA: Why the details matter.Jamie MacLeod & David Luke. (March 2022).
- The European Union is undermining prospects for a free trade agreement with Africa. David Luke, Melaku Desta & Simon Mevel (December 2021).
- The impact of COVID-19 on trade in Africa. David Luke & Jamie MacLeod (December 2021).
- Why trade matters for African development. David Luke (July 2020).
Media
- Interview: Understanding African trade is key to helping its development. (Professor David Luke).
- Interview: ‘Africa can achieve more if it will speak with one voice‘. (Professor David Luke).
- Podcast: Informal Exchange: Informal Cross Border Trade... Policy? (featuring Professor David Luke).
- Video: Informal Cross Border Trade and Policy(Professor David Luke & the International Trade Centre).
David Luke, Programme Lead
David Luke is Professor in Practice and Strategic Director at the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa. Specialising in African trade policy and trade negotiations, Professor Luke has decades of experience in policy advisory services, managing and catalysing research, building partnerships, training and capacity development for private sector and government, including as Coordinator of the African Trade Policy Centre at the UN Economic Commission. He has previously worked at the African Union, the UN Development Programme and with a tentured position at Dalhousie University, Halifax.
Email: d.luke@lse.ac.uk
Colette van der Ven, Research Consultant
Colette van der Ven is an international lawyer with expertise in trade and sustainable development. She is Founder and Director of TULIP – a Geneva-based consulting firm focussed on promoting inclusive and green development – and a visiting professor in international economic law at the Graduate Institute. Previously, Colette founded and served as Director for the Trade for Development Initiative and she holds a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School and is a Member of the New York Bar. She will provide research for the Africa Trade Policy Review.
Professor Olawale Ogunkola
Olawale Ogunkola is Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. He is the current the Head of Department and was previously the Dean of the Faculty of the Social Sciences between 2012 and 2014. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Ibadan Centre for Econometrics and Allied Research (CEAR) and Director of the University of Ibadan Trade Policy Research and Training Programme (TPRTP). He holds a PhD from the University of Ibadan. He has published extensively in the area of trade and regional integration with particular focus on Africa. He has consulted widely for various bodies in Nigeria, Africa and internationally. He has served as a resource person to the Regional Trade Policy Course (RTPC) of World Trade Organisation (WTO).
William Davis, Visiting Fellow
Will is an economist who has worked with organisations across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. During most of his career, he has focused on Africa, covering trade, fiscal and industrial policies as well as illicit financial flows. He is currently an independent consultant supporting a range of organisations on the economics of Africa, including the continent's food trade, opportunities for economic development linked to green minerals, illicit financial flows, and domestic resource mobilisation, fiscal policies for the mining sector, emissions taxes and voluntary carbon markets. He is an invited participant in the United Nations sub-committee on Extractive Industries Taxation and the technical advisory board of the Global Mining Tax Initiative.
Dr Hany Besada, Visiting Senior Fellow
Dr Hany Besada is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa at LSE. He is currently serving as a Senior Advisor at Global Affairs Canada and Deputy Executive Director of the Global South-North Centre. He is also a Non-Executive Director at MAFCO Capital, Associate Professor at the Wits School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand, Senior Research Fellow at the United Nations University–Institute for Natural Resources in Africa, Senior Fellow at the African Centre for Economic Transformation, and Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto.
Liz May, Policy Fellow
Liz May is a Policy Fellow with the Africa Trade Policy Programme at LSE Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa. She has over twenty-five years' experience of policy, research and advocacy work on international trade, development, environment, supply chains, business and human rights. She has worked in academia as a senior researcher at SOAS Development Leadership Dialogue; as a private consultant for a wide range of private sector and government clients; and spent many years leading advocacy work in civil society for Transform Trade, Stop AIDS Campaign and Action for Southern Africa.