A. Achievements from 2003 to2013
The first phase of ATPC (ATPC I) was from 2003 to 2008. Some of the key results achieved during that phase are:
Enhanced African capacity to develop technical trade proposals. This is evi-denced by the improved participation, understanding and confidence of trained African negotiators and a better under-standing of ATPC research activities. This was confirmed by the African World Trade Organization Group in Geneva and the Evaluation Team of ATPC I.
Increased understanding of the impor-tant role of trade in development. Active information dissemination, training and advisory services enabled all African coun-tries and the regional economic commu-nities to seek better ways of integrating trade into their development strategies.
This was attested to by participant eval-uations at several ATPC activities, includ-ing the ad hoc expert group meetinclud-ing on mainstreaming trade into national devel-opment strategies, which took place in Casablanca, Morocco in May 2006.
Increased coordination and harmoniza-tion of regional and subregional trade positions. Some examples of common trade positions which ATPC helped to for-mulate are the Tunis Roadmap, the Cairo Declaration and Roadmap and the Arusha Development Benchmarks.
Increased credibility and influence in shaping Africa’s trade agenda. The contri-bution of ATPC to trade capacity-building in Africa is increasingly being recognized.
It hosted the 2006 Global Trade Analysis Project Global Trade Conference and has developed partnerships with other key stakeholders in the area of trade.
The increasing demand for ATPCI services by African countries and their expectations of continued and
broad support led to ATPC II (2008-2013), which maintained the broad objectives of ATPC I and fo-cused on assisting the regional economic commu-nities in Africa and their member States to integrate trade more effectively into their development strat-egies.
With core funding support from the Canadian International Development Agency and contri-butions from the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, ATPC II made an impact on the African trade agenda with the follow-ing key accomplishments:
The Centre supported the regional eco-nomic communities in setting up their trade policy units. Trade policy units are now fully functional at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community (SADC);and are currently pro-viding technical support to member States in trade policy analysis.
It facilitated consensus building and stake-holder validation of common trade po-sitions. Trade policy decisions made by senior officials of the regional economic communities and member States based on ATPC research and technical advisory activities have influenced major global and regional trade positions significantly, as re-flected in the outcome document of the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries in May 2011 in Istanbul, Turkey; the outcome document of the Tenth Annual Africa Growth and Opportunity Act Forum held in Lusaka, June 2011; the adoption of a common African position to postpone the sign-ing of economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between African regional econom-ic communities and the European Union;
the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development joint Aid for Trade at a
Glance 2011 report; the outcome docu-ment and the adoption of a common po-sition of African Ministers of Trade at the sixth ordinary session of the African Union Conference of Ministers of Trade held in Kigali from 29 October to 2 November 2010, on institutional reforms of the World Trade Organization, the Roadmap for Doha and the response to the global finan-cial and economic crises; the decision by African Ministers of Trade at the Ministerial Conference in 2010 to fast-track the es-tablishment of a CFTA; the adoption of a common position to extend AGOA be-yond 2015 and the extension of the Third Country Fabric provision; the decision to establish a tripartite free trade area among EAC, SADC and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa; the 2012 decision of the African Union Assembly of Heads of State and Government to en-dorse an Action Plan for BIAT and the es-tablishment of a CFTA by the indicative date of 2017; and the ongoing discussions on the BIAT implementation strategy.
ATPC II also designed and delivered re-search, training, mentoring and advisory support on trade issues to beneficiaries.
These are evidenced in the development of an EPA template as a framework for ne-gotiations. The ATPC evaluation revealed that 70 per cent of senior officials trained in the member States participated in the analysis and review of their national trade policy frameworks, while 85 per cent of ATPC trainees provided a positive assess-ment of the training received, through participant evaluation. Remarkably, all the ATPC training programmes are oversub-scribed.
The centre has also systematically dissem-inated its research findings, activities and other current issues to its member States and the regional economic communities and helped to enhance Africa’s knowledge base on trade and trade-related issues through research analysis, publications and training. The Centre’s evidence-based and analytical research work on
publica-tions such as “Work in Progress” and “Policy Briefs” have enhanced the negotiating ca-pacity of African Governments. Over 2,000 subscribers are registered in the Africa Trade Knowledge Network.
The ATPC website is still functioning and is updated on a regular basis. Knowledge management user spaces have been cre-ated for the ATPC “Trade and Environment”
and “Trade and Gender” networks, with links to a continuously updated invento-ry page on Africa trade facilitation institu-tions within the knowledge management platform. The Centre has been acknowl-edged by trade constituencies as one of the leading Africa-based policy advisory service providers.
The Centre continued to work tirelessly to mainstream HIV/AIDS, gender and en-vironment into its activities. As a result of its programme to support gender-relat-ed activities in trade, the Centre has be-come a full member of the Gender Expert Network formed by the International Trade Centre to enhance the outcomes of aid for trade. Opportunities have been creat-ed for the cross-fertilization of experiences and knowledge for women in business in Africa through the ATPC/ECA-Subregional Office for Southern Africa programme of activities to support women in business.
The Centre also supported ECOWAS mem-ber States to undertake specialized training in trade and gender dynamics. Following the launch of the Trade and Environment Knowledge Management Platform for ECOWAS, efforts are underway to replicate the platform in other regional economic communities. The cross-border trade pro-ject of the East African Community was also initiated to enhance the trade activ-ities of the border communactiv-ities in East Africa.
The Centre also mobilized support and se-cured agreement to scale up resources for the World Trade Organization Aid for Trade Initiative. Other achievements by the
cen-tre include: enhancing solidarity and forg-ing common negotiatforg-ing positions with emerging developing economies in World Trade Organization negotiations; achiev-ing an effective negotiatachiev-ing outcome for African regional economic communities and member States in the EPA negotia-tions; securing critical improvements in the preference regime for eligible African countries under AGOA, including but not limited to the extension of the AGOA timeframe and the Third Country Fabric Provision; building critical trade institu-tional capacity through the establishment of the African Alliance for e-Commerce and the African Corridor Management Alliance ;and support to the Government of Ethiopia to establish the Dry Port of Ethiopia.
The Centre also adopted the aid for trade strate-gies by ECOWAS and SADC for their respective re-gions and the e-Commerce strategy by SADC. It partnered with the African Centre for Gender and Social Development and UN-Women to conduct the Annual Continental Workshop on Trade and Gender that advocates and influences the gender agenda in Africa. The Centre was also involved in the institu-tionalization of the Africa Trade Forum into African Union structures on BIAT and CFTA.
B. Evaluations
The ATPC programmes have been reviewed twice in the past 10 years by a team of independent evalua-tors. ATPCI was evaluated in 2007 and ATPC II in 2011.
One of the main objectives of the evaluations was to identify key lessons drawn from its implementation with the view to improving the relevance and perfor-mance of the Centre. The evaluation exercises under-scored the need for ATPC to:
Incorporate the regional dimension more into its work
Put more resources at its disposal
Develop quantitative indicators to meas-ure its impact;
Broaden the research scope and incorpo-rate cross-cutting issues in its activities
Provide more specialized training to stake-holders and create trade policy units in the regional economic communities
Enhance links between Geneva and Brussels-based negotiators and African capitals
Assist African countries to translate inter-national trade agreements into domestic legislation
Explore a wide range of options to ensure sustainability
The external evaluation of ATPC I conducted in 2007 concluded that ATPC has, since its inception, proved its relevance, efficiency and ability to provide timely response to African countries to help build capaci-ty in trade-related issues. Stakeholders adjudge the Centre to be effective in undertaking activities relat-ed to its service lines, especially in research, training and dissemination of its products. In spite of its lim-ited human and financial resources, ATPC has been able to achieve its objective to respond to the capac-ity constraints of African trade negotiators at multilat-eral negotiations. A direct positive result of this devel-opment is the fact that African trade negotiators are increasingly involved in discussions on substantive issues in World Trade Organization and EPA negoti-ations.
According to the 2011 evaluation report on ATPC II,
“The increased demand for its services points to its importance and relevance to Africa’s current growth efforts”. Also, “The sustainability of ATPC is of utmost importance. The support of development partners and ECA that has kept the work of the Centre going up until now should be appreciated and encouraged to continue while efforts are made to bring other partners on board to support ATPC.” Lastly, “ATPC has also played a significant role in advancing the trade agenda in Africa … and the important work that ATPC is doing and its success so far should be ap-plauded”. The full report of the evaluation has been widely shared with stakeholders and is available un-der a separate cover.
C. Constraints and lessons learned
A number of constraining factors and lessons were also identified during the evaluation; the main one
being the difficulty for quantitative indicators to measure the Centre’s overall impact. For instance, some outputs in trade performance could not be attributed to ATPC alone, especially where other trade-related capacity-building projects were also supporting the same stakeholders. The Centre also lacked the requisite human resources to meet the in-creasing demand for its services from African capitals, the regional economic communities and negotiators in Brussels, Geneva and the United States of America.
There was a need to find a balance between the lim-ited capacity and resources of the Centre and meet-ing the demands from individual States. As ATPC was clearly not in a position to meet requests from all African countries, it was felt that a regional and subregional approach to providing advisory services would give better value for money.
The evaluation revealed that the Centre’s partner-ships had enabled it to leverage its limited resources to deliver on its extensive activities. However, it was also clear that since many of its partners did not deal exclusively with African issues and had other con-stituencies, they might not be able to take on Africa-specific perspectives. This was not the case for ATPC, whose African constituency was clear.
D. Rationale for continuing the mandate
The significant role played by trade in the growth and transformation of African economies and the regional integration process of Africa cannot be overempha-sized. The experience of most developed countries and emerging economies unequivocally reinforces the same fact about the importance of trade, and clearly establishes the linkages between trade im-provement in production capacities, value addition, specialization, job creation, income generation and poverty alleviation.
The trade challenges faced by African countries and the policy recommendations articulated in an earlier section of this Business Plan require continued insti-tutional capacity-building support. Also, skills must be developed to enhance the ability of officials at the regional, subregional and national levels to integrate trade into national development strategies and re-gional integration programmes. There is also a need to improve the capacity of African negotiators of bi-lateral, regional and international trade agreements.
African countries should also be empowered to im-plement negotiated agreements. These critical ele-ments in Africa’s trade development agenda confirm the importance of trade support institutions such as ATPC.
In addition, the decision by the African Union Assembly of Heads of State and Government to boost intra-African trade and establish a CFTA have carved out a prominent role for ECA/ATPC as one of the leading technical institutions supporting the im-plementation of the summit decision.
E. Niche and comparative advantage of the African Trade Policy Centre
ATPC has the potential to grow very quickly to be-come the leading advocate of Africa’s trade agenda.
There is currently no Africa-based regional institution supported by African institutions and managed by local professionals, which focus exclusively on de-veloping trade on the continent. For nearly 10 years now, ATPC, with the support of its implementing and funding partners, has developed the institutional ca-pacity and memory on trade and the trade-related agenda for Africa and an extensive network of stake-holders and partner organizations. Also, it has the brand identity to fill the gap associated with trade challenges in Africa.
The Centre’s relative strength lies in its ability to con-vene different stakeholders working on trade negoti-ation and implementnegoti-ation issues; its ability to provide targeted support to national and regional institu-tions; its continental scope and flexible approach. On BIAT/CFTA-related initiatives, ATPC has made a posi-tive contribution in bringing policymakers together from across the continent to learn from each other and begin to build a coordinated response. The an-nual African Trade Forum and national consultative forums, initiated by the Centre, are two examples of this contribution. Indeed, the African Union has in-stitutionalized the African Trade Forum as part of the BIAT/CFTA frame work, to provide a comprehensive, integrated and inclusive platform for intense policy dialogue among trade constituencies and deliberate and agree on common approaches and strategies for implementing the action plan for BIAT and establish-ing CFTA.
There is general consensus that AUC and ATPC work on the CFTA negotiation agenda and the BIAT
imple-mentation agenda has made positive contributions and should be continued. The proposed BIAT/CFTA implementation strategy developed by AUC and ATPC, under consultation and finalization, has laid out clear action plans for member States, the regional economic communities, AUC and other stakeholders for the implementation of BIAT and establishment of CFTA by an indicative date of 2017. ATPC is therefore well positioned to continue to provide targeted sup-port to key components of the two initiatives.
The Centre’s work on trade and cross-cutting themes has also contributed to the continent’s transforma-tive agenda. For growth to be sustainable and inclu-sive in Africa, there must be continued exploration of cross-cutting themes such as gender, green econo-my and environment, energy and information and communication technologies (ICT) and their linkages to trade. ATPC, with its extensive experience in these critical areas, is thus strategically positioned to con-tinue supporting Africa’s trade agenda.