Gavin van der Nest is a statistical consultant with interests in model-based clustering, econometrics, and environmental and natural resource economics. He has worked in economic consultancy and most recently serves as an assistant professor in statistics. He has researched and written widely for tralac on topics ranging from the natural environment and climate to finance. He holds a Ph.D. in statistics from Maastricht University (Netherlands) and an MSc in Economics (University of Edinburgh).

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Our strategic and specific goals, as well as the conceptualisation and design of tralac’s programs of interventions (or activities) are based on our values, anchored on foundational principles of rules-based governance –transparency, accountability, equity, and inclusion. We also take guidance from the revised 2019 OECD/DAC Revised Evaluation Criteria Definitions and Principles for Use. The OECD/DAC criteria provide a sound board for the design and development of tralac’s overall strategy and a checklist against which specific interventions or activities are measured.

Our understanding of these principles in the context of tralac’s work is as follows:

• Effectiveness: Does the activity achieve its objectives?

• Efficiency: How efficiently are resources being used? How can we use our resources (financial, human) more efficiently?

• Impact: What difference does this activity make (both at the individual and institutional level)?

• Sustainability: Does the activity have a lasting impact (is there a transfer of impact beyond the direct beneficiary)?

The recent addition of a fifth principle to this compact – coherence – resonates very much with tralac’s ethos or values. We believe that internal consistency, in terms of our vision, strategy and specific interventions in our work program, is a prerequisite for achieving sustainable impact. We adopt a systems thinking approach to the interventions across the three pillars of our work, leveraging the linkages, synergies and feedback loops.

tralac welcomed the adoption of the United Nations 2030 development agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and we link our objectives to the the achievement of these goals for African countries.

Our strategic objectives are:

1. To contribute to specific Sustainable Development Goals: ensuring that the foundational principle of ‘leaving no one behind’ finds practical application in all our programs to ensure inclusivity and voice for marginalised stakeholders in trade policy and governance (our focus will be primarily, but not exclusively, on women and youth, and Africa’s least developed countries)

2. To build both technical and institutional capacity to enhance trade policy making, international trade agreements and rules-based trade governance, so that trade contributes to sustainable development outcomes

3. To ensure that we comply with principles of good governance in all we do and how we engage, in an inclusive and respectful manner, with partners and beneficiaries

Our specific objectives are:

1. To develop innovative, appropriate, and sustainable interventions that inform, capacitate, and empower specific beneficiaries, in order to respond to:

1. • current multilateral governance developments, including the crisis in the World Trade Organization, climate change and the COVID-19 global pandemic – specifically to enhance the participation of African countries to address these crises

   • emerging developments on Africa’s trade and integration agenda, including the negotiations and implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement,

   • the COVID-19 impact on Africa - which confirms our interconnectedness on the continent and the importance of regional integration and the imperative for sustainable development

   • support the empowerment of women other marginalized groups through trade (Sustainable Development Goals 1 and 5)

   • productive capacity and resilience and to facilitate trade, to be prepared for future crises and challenges (Sustainable Development Goals 8 and 9)

   • to consolidate our inter-disciplinary analysis of current and emerging issues on Africa’s trade and integration agenda. Being able to respond at short notice to emerging developments, requires expert capacity and continuing learning

   • to nurture existing partnerships and build new partnerships at the national, regional, continental, and global levels to enhance our capacity and impact (Sustainable Development Goal 16)

2. To expand tralac’s reach to the West and Central African region, building on lessons from our work in East and Southern Africa by inviting participants to training and dialogue events. This is necessary, acknowledging the implications of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement - a continent-wide integration initiative

3. To build our own capacity and resource base to assure the sustainability of tralac as a model non-profit organisation

Our work program, which is designed to achieve these objectives, is anchored on three pillars:

Inform

Analysis and providing access to trade-related information, including a Daily Trade News Service and Monthly Newsletter

Capacitate

Training: tralac Certificate - International Trade Law and Policy for Africa’s Development, Reading and Interpreting International Trade Agreements – case of the AfCFTA and other short courses

Empower

tralac’s flagship Annual Conference, AfCFTA Stakeholder Workshops and other events

Prof Nick Vink is Chair of the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University. He is currently (2015-2018) the President-elect of the International Association of Agricultural Economists, and serves as a non-Executive Director on the Boards of the South African Reserve Bank, Pty. Ltd., and of Rooibos, Ltd. Nick’s main research interests include agricultural development on the African continent, land reform and structural change in South African agriculture, agricultural policy and wine economics.

Eckart Naumann is an economist with an undergraduate degree in economics and financial accounting and an M. Com in economics from the University of Cape Town. His research and consulting work spans a range of sectors and subjects, with a particular focus on rules of origin and market access issues. He has assisted the SADC, EAC and ESA EPA groups in their preparations for negotiating revised RoO with the EU, and has been part of the all-ACP Expert Group on Rules of Origin. He has undertaken assignment work for a range of organisations, including the World Bank, USAID/Tradehub, the EC, ACP Sec, ITC, ICTSD, Comsec and others.  

Ron Sandrey is Professor Extraordinaire, Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Stellenbosch and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Agribusiness & Economics Research Unit, Lincoln University, New Zealand. He came to South Africa in 2005 following a career as an economist with New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, and has since worked extensively on trade-related issues in southern Africa. He holds a PhD in Economics from Oregon State University and currently resides in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Gerhard Erasmus is a founder of tralac and Professor Emeritus (Law Faculty), University of Stellenbosch. He holds degrees from the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein (B.Iuris, LL.B), Leiden in the Netherlands (LLD) and a Master’s from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He has consulted for governments, the private sector and regional organisations in southern Africa. He has also been involved in the drafting of the South African and Namibian constitutions. He grew up in Namibia.

Madeleine Hitzeroth is tralac’s Administrative Assistant, responsible for management of the tralac office. She joined tralac in 2005, having previously worked in the public and private sectors in various capacities including training, administration and human resources.

Trudi Hartzenberg is the Executive Director of tralac. She has a special interest in trade-related capacity building. Her research areas include trade policy issues, regional integration, investment, industrial and competition policy.

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