8 Africa in the New Trade Environment
Ingredients for Sub-Saharan Africa’s Market Access Strategy Four topics are relevant to exploring ways to expand Sub-Saharan Africa’s market access in the current global environment: 1. The impact of trade agreements (unilateral, regional, and multilateral trade agreements with the rest of the world) on Sub-Saharan Africa’s trade (addressed in chapters 1–4) 2. The role of GVCs and offshoring in Sub-Saharan Africa’s trade expansion and structural transformation (chapters 5 and 7) 3. The prospects of regional integration in Africa to exploit substantial economies of scale (chapter 6) 4. The challenges to boosting trade in services in Sub-Saharan Africa and reducing nontariff trade barriers (chapter 7). On unilateral, regional, and multilateral trade agreements, it is worth assessing whether the EU’s stated objective—to use economic partnership agreements to foster development in its low- and middle-income trading partners—would hold in a protectionist world. Would “regional integration to scale up supply capacity, and global integration to scale up demand” still be a valid proposition, as suggested in World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography (World Bank 2009)? Will Sub-Saharan Africa’s preferential access to the EU and the United States hold in a protectionist world? Will the rising Africa–Asia trade hold in the new global environment? Regarding GVCs, offshoring, and structural transformation, it is worth assessing whether nontariff measures such as standards requirements and other nontariff barriers are a catalyst or a barrier to Sub-Saharan African firms’ participation in food GVCs. Furthermore, with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, what will it take for Sub-Saharan Africa to continue to attract offshoring and outsourcing of manufacturing? As for the challenges to expanding trade in services, it is worth assessing whether the services liberalization momentum will continue in a protectionist world. Would services trade liberalization still be a driver of aggregate productivity? What could happen to services preferences? The role of countries’ own policies is of course the main driver of trade performance for both goods and services, and Sub-Saharan African countries will be best advised to continue their trade reform momentum. Impact of Trade Agreements on Sub-Saharan Africa’s Share in Global Trade Unilateral trade preferences are policies enacted by high-income economies aimed at lowering trade barriers to LMICs, hence facilitating increased export earnings through larger volumes of exports and more diversified exports. Two preeminent examples are the US AGOA (extended to many Sub-Saharan African countries in 2000), followed in 2001 by the EU’s EBA initiative targeting all least developed countries (LDCs) across the world.
