Strengthening African services negotiation capacity

UNCTAD, in collaboration with the African Union Commission, is holding a training Workshop on Trade in Services negotiations for the officials/negotiators from the Member States of the African Union on 24-28 August 2015 at the Hilton Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya. This Workshop is aimed at capacity development of the AU Member States’ negotiators in the area of trade in services in order to support negotiations of the Continental Free Trade Agreement (CFTA).

The main focus of the Workshop will be to introduce the participants with importance of the trade in services in economy, potential for export of services in the region and globally, treaty obligations of AU Member States in the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Service and best practices for negotiating services in other regional trade agreements. Experiences in services development and liberalization of regional integration groupings in Africa like ECOWAS and COMESA also will be examined.

Experts from UNCTAD, AUC, WTO, FAO, TRALAC, ILEAP, Member States and other international experts will share their insights and experiences with the participants.

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Background document

Building the African Continental Free Trade Area: Some suggestions on the way forward

African Union (AU) Trade Ministers will soon be confronted with a number of decisions regarding the formation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA). They would have to address, among others, the modalities of the negotiations, including their content and pacing, the trade and trade related issues to be included in the future CFTA agreement, the harmonization and coordination of the various trade agreements and negotiations to which African countries are parties, and the technical and financial support needed to move the CFTA forward.

In line with the 2012 African Union Summit Declaration on Boosting Intra-African Trade and the Establishment of a Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA), UNCTAD, UNECA and the AU Commission (AUC) have undertaken a series of studies to analyze the various aspects of the CFTA negotiations. The main purpose of these studies is to provide African Trade Ministers, the High Level African Trade Committee charged with CFTA issues, and trade negotiators with key insights and analyses on some of the CFTA most critical issues, thus assisting them in moving the CFTA negotiations forward in a meaningful manner.

This policy paper was prepared with the aim of submitting it for the consideration of the AU Trade Ministers at their meetings on the CFTA. It refers, firstly, to the challenges and opportunities of the CFTA; it then addresses issues such as the pacing of the various trade initiatives, in particular the strategic relationship between the Tripartite Free Trade Agreement (TFTA) and the CFTA; the specific content of the proposed CFTA; and the need for an effective and efficient mechanism to support the negotiating process and the implementation of the agreement once it enters into force. The paper concludes with some policy recommendations on these issues with the underlying premise that to multiply the benefits of the CFTA in the form of expanded markets for African goods and services, unobstructed factor movement, new investment opportunities and industrialization, an ample vision of trade, investment, finance and business facilitation needs to prevail.

This Paper was prepared with the support of Miguel Rodríguez Mendoza, former Deputy Director General of the World Trade Organization. UNCTAD gratefully acknowledges the useful contributions of the African Union Commission and UN Economic Commission for Africa to reports commissioned by UNCTAD on aspects of the CFTA that served as a basis for this paper.