Christopher Stevens

Agricultural Reciprocity under Economic Partnership Agreements

This paper investigates how the formation of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the EU might affect the ability of the six Development Cooperation Ireland programme countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to continue to provide protection to their domestic agri-food sectors. Various scenarios are constructed on the assumption that ‘substantially all trade with the EU must be liberalised if the EPAs are to be compatible with WTO rules on regional trade agreements. The paper concludes that EPAs are unlikely to require major changes in existing levels of border protection provided to domestic agriculture in Ethiopia, Lesotho, Mozambique and Zambia but that the effects on Tanzania and Uganda could be greater. It argues that the preparation of a ‘defensive EPA strategy by these countries should occur in parallel with a strategic review of agricultural trade policy.

Legal? Decent? Honest?

Against the Grain is a self-confessed polemic which aims to show that large scale project food aid is an inherently inappropriate means of promoting development. It fails in this endeavour, but succeeds very well in demonstrating that the main food aid donors are often guilty of gross breaches of the Trade Descriptions Act and, hence, have only themselves to blame when books such as this one achieve wide interest. Yet if it fails, it does not go down without a fight! In his writing as in life, Tony Jackson is nothing if not stimulating. He explodes systematically many of the myths fostered by the aid agencies to justify their empires, using a wealth of case studies drawn from his own experience, the writings of others and the reports of fieldworkers.