The Doha agenda: What’s in it for Africa, and what next for secured development outcomes and fast integration imperatives?

The paper reviews Africa’s priority issues and interests in ongoing WTO negotiations and re-asserts the findings that Doha trade liberalization agenda in agriculture will have a high positive impact on growth and welfare in Africa relative to the rest of the world, though they will not all gain given the heterogeneity of countries involved. This conclusion is drawn from a comprehensive study carried out to shed light on a number of critical trade related issues of relevance to Africa Union and its Members states. Taking a twin track approach to investigate the issue of agricultural trade liberalization and its impact on African countries, a critical assessment of the rules governing agricultural trade at the multilateral level is carried out followed with an analysis of the offensive and defensive interests of African countries in the WTO negotiations using the Global Trade Analysis Project model and the GTAP database. Some key findings among others include the following: the Doha Development Round has to go beyond the Uruguay Round to make progress on three key issues: market access, agricultural support and S&D treatment; Estimates of welfare changes under the proposed Doha scenario for African regions are quite modest and are estimated at around US$ 8.3 billion; the study reveals the relative importance of market access issues (namely tariffs) in improving the welfare of Africa; Net gain to Africa is estimated at US$ 320 million under market access reforms only (i.e. tariff reductions) compared to US$ 99 million gains under export subsidies and US$ 4 million under domestic support. The inclusion of Trade Facilitation and removal of NTBs in trade liberalization amplifies the gains from liberalization of goods only but the gains are not necessarily in terms of trade effects but also allocative efficiency. Key words: WTO negotiations, trade liberaliz3ation, Doha round, market access