About

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.
Dr David Luke, Professor in Practice and Strategic Director at the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa

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 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.