Africa is a heterogeneous, vast and vibrant continent. It is home to 54 countries, has about 15 percent of global population, is endowed with enormous natural resources, and has experienced relatively strong economic growth over the past decade. Yet, most countries on the continent continue to grapple with the challenge of how to achieve sustained poverty reduction and build inclusive societies.

Trade has the potential to contribute to addressing this challenge. It has played this role effectively in developed countries and also in several countries in Asia and Latin America. It could also play this role in Africa if appropriate measures are taken to unlock and harness its potential for growth and development. Despite the progress that has been made by African governments in economic policy formulation and management over the past decade, trade priorities have not been fully and effectively integrated into national development strategies of many countries on the continent and this has had serious consequences for their ability to effectively integrate into the global trading system and increase their share of the benefits of global trade.

Mainstreaming trade is important for Africa because the benefits of trade are not automatic. They accrue to countries that have taken proactive steps to exploit opportunities created in the global trading system. In this context, there is the need for African countries to elaborate their trade priorities and fully integrate them into overall development strategies to ensure better development outcomes from trade than was the case in the past.

While there is no generally accepted definition for mainstreaming trade, it is well-known that one of its main objectives is to have a trade strategy or framework that is consistent with overall national development goals. But effective trade mainstreaming is not only about policy coherence. It requires including trade policies, programmes and projects not only in national plans but, more importantly, also in national budgets. Furthermore, it entails building human and institutional capacities for trade, improving infrastructure, developing productive capacities for trade and transforming economies, recognizing and dealing with the adjustment costs of trade reforms, strengthening coordination across government ministries and departments, building effective partnerships between governments and local stakeholders, and ensuring effective implementation of policies by governments.

This is clearly a challenging exercise, but it has been successfully done in both developed and emerging economies in different continents. In particular, several countries in Asia have effectively integrated trade in their national development strategies with very positive results. In this context, as African countries grapple with the challenges of trade mainstreaming there are useful lessons they can learn from the experiences of Asian countries.

For ease of exposition, the discussion and analysis in this paper will be based on the experiences of three Asian countries (China, the Republic of Korea and Singapore) that have made significant progress in integrating into the global trading system and in transforming their export and production structures over the past few decades.

Each of the three Asian countries has unique features that make it an interesting case for drawing lessons for Africa. For example, Singapore is the second most trade dependent economy in the world and in the 1960s was a small vulnerable country with low levels of per capita income as most African countries today. Yet, it has been able to successfully integrate into the global trading system and make the transition from a developing to a developed economy.

The Republic of Korea is particularly interesting because over the past four decades its status shifted from aid recipient to an aid donor indicating that development can take place even in aid recipient countries. With regard to China, it is interesting because despite its status as a developing country it is now one of the three big economies in the world and has made significant progress in trade and poverty reduction despite following an unorthodox development path.

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The aim of the Trade and Poverty Paper Series is to disseminate the findings of research work on the inter-linkages between trade and poverty and to identify policy options at the national and international levels on the use of trade as a more effective tool for poverty eradication. The opinions expressed in papers under the series are those of the authors and are not to be taken as the official views of the UNCTAD Secretariat or its member states.

The previous paper in the series, ‘Integrating trade into national development strategies and plans: The experience of African LDCs’, is available here.