Stephen Karingi

The trade facilitation agreement and Africa's regional integration

ABSTRACT This article puts the implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) in the context of Africas ongoing regional integration efforts, and its main contributions are fourfold. It demonstrates that trade-related costs hinder not only Africas integration with the rest of the world, but, more fundamentally, its own regional integration. It compares the instruments covered by the TFA with those already implemented on the ground, discussing some policy challenges in the implementation of the TFA. Lastly, it presents evidence of the benefits of trade facilitation in the context of the Continental Free Trade Area.

The Impact of Industrial Market Access Negotiations on African Economies

This paper proposes an extensive data simulation exercise on the likely impact of non-agricultural market access liberalization. The paper analyses real options for tariff cut reduction, special and differential treatment and the treatment of unbound tariffs. This paper also gives indications concerning the likely economic impact of this trade round of industrial market access negotiations on African economies. It shows that an ambitious tariff cut reduction formula would provide greater access to developed country markets for African producers. However, this kind of formula has a major drawback for African countries in the sense that it could accelerate the de-industrialization of African countries and limit incentives to diversify their economies.

Back to the Future: A 25-year Retrospective on GTAP and the Shaping of a New Agenda

This article looks back at 25 years of achievements of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) from different angles. It covers the design features of the project and the collaboration in a global research network, the contributions GTAP has made to better informed trade policy making, its contributions in the area of environment and climate change and its capacity to absorb theoretical developments in applied modeling. The paper also makes some suggestions about future directions.

From global goals to regional strategies: towards an African approach to SDGs

Starting from a stock-taking of the millennium development goals, the paper emphasizes the need to pay greater attention to Africa’s regional dimension in the context of the post-2015 development agenda. Three main arguments are elaborated in this respect. First, translating the sustainable development goals (SDGs) into regional development strategies can enhance the link between global objectives and the multifaceted reality of a multi-polar world, enhancing policy coherence, and providing a strategic option to strengthen Africa’s bargaining power vis-à-vis both developed and emerging partners. Secondly, a regional approach to SDGs can facilitate the definition of relevant targets/indicators and enhance the monitoring and evaluation framework. In so doing it could also offer the scope to integrate more closely SDGs’ social and environmental concerns into existing development frameworks. Thirdly, focusing just on the economic sphere – the area where Africa’s integration is relatively more advanced – increasing evidence suggests that effective regional integration can support the continent’s transformation agenda and foster more inclusive and sustainable growth.