African Trade Policy Centre

Excellent opportunity for planning Africa’s sustainable development, ECA partners declare

Addis Ababa, 17 June 2015 (ECA) – Since Rio +20, Africa has been redefining, refining, implementing and reviewing sustainable development. As such, “the region will not be starting from scratch in reviewing implementation of sustainable development agreements,” said Ms Federica Pietracci, Senior Economist from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs at the opening of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development conference in Addis Ababa.

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The Option of a Framework Agreement in the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) Negotiations

A framework agreement in international relations is an interim pact between countries that establishes the principles, scope and details of what has been agreed. A framework agreement normally includes a clear understanding that the outstanding issues will be concluded in an incremental manner and/or by a clearly established date.

Expert Group Meeting on "Improving Central Africa's Business Climate"

In Africa, there are still challenges in improving the business climate despite the many advances made in recent years. Indeed, according to the World Bank, sixteen of the most difficult countries to do business in are African. Among the six, four are Central African states: Congo , the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Gabon . This ranking is sufficient proof how Central Africa lags behind in terms of facilities do business.

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Building Trade Capacities for Africa’s Transformation

At a conceptual level, the notion of Aid for Trade can be traced to the debate surrounding the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) number 8 and the “global partnership for development”.1 In practical terms, however, Aid for Trade prominently enters into the development discourse with the 2005 Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration of the World Trade Organization (WTO), where it is initially conceived as a “valuable complement” to the Doha Development Round.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), one of the defining characteristics of the trade and commercial relationship between the United States and Africa, will expire on September 30, 2015. So far, there have been heightened discussions both by African and U.S. policymakers on the post-2015 commercial relationship between the United States and African countries, excluding North Africa. These discussions have largely focused on whether to extend the current legislation, and, if so, for how long, and what elements of the current legislation should be changed.

Experts to consider human rights impact assessment of the proposed Continental Free Trade Area in Africa

Addis Ababa, 16 April 2015 (ECA) - Experts have gathered in Addis Ababa for a two day meeting to undertake a human rights impact assessment of the proposed African Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA), focusing on employment, food security and agricultural livelihoods.

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