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Brief Remarks

The ATPC Partnership Roundtable

By H.E. Mr. Olusegun Akinsanya,
Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Nigeria

13 April 2006
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

I am delighted to be here at this Partnership Roundtable of the African Trade Policy Centre because of the opportunity it affords me to acknowledge the valuable work being carried out in the Centre and also to exchange views with such an interesting variety of African development partners.

Let me start by noting that the ATPC has injected much welcome vibrancy into the discourse on international trade as it pertains to Africa, especially through its research, information and training activities. I expect that this event will contribute to ensuring that it continues to provide its much valued services. My purpose in this short intervention therefore is to acknowledge and encourage two key aspects of the ATPC's work programme and identify some priority areas for its future work.

The ATPC has, in the recent past, organized two events for African Diplomatic Missions in Addis Ababa. These were a briefing session on its activities as well as a Training Workshop on the WTO negotiations in Geneva. Both events were very well attended by African Embassies because they filled crucial gaps in our work here in Addis Ababa. The briefing session enabled Missions in Addis Ababa to understand the nature and extent of work being carried out in the Centre, which our colleagues in Brussels and Geneva have been making use of for some time now. By bringing African Missions in Addis Ababa into its network of clients, the ATPC has contributed to promoting coherence between those of us in the political capital of Africa and the trade negotiators representing our continent in trade negotiating centres. The Training Workshop on WTO negotiations, in which I participated in full along with several of my colleagues, also helped to improve our understanding of the technical underpinnings of this key negotiating process. The ATPC should continue along these lines to add value to the work of African diplomatic missions in Addis Ababa.

Another aspect of the ATPC's activities which I would like to encourage is the building of the kind of partnership that we have seen at this Roundtable. Given the paucity of resources available for development in Africa, partnerships are essential for maximizing the benefits that can accrue from developmental activities undertaken on behalf of African countries. Such partnerships which can be used as vehicles of technical assistance, capacity building and policy advocacy in Africa, need not be limited to states and international organizations but should also include non-state actors. In the particular area of trade policy, I am happy to note that the ECA has been partnering well with the African Union and African Development Bank as well as with partners like the Canada Fund for Africa and the United Nations Development Programme. It is also pleasing that African research institutions and civil society organizations have been active in the joint delivery of services with the African Trade Policy Centre. In addition, however, I would like to see the promotion of greater synergies with NEPAD and African private sector operators.

Before I end this short contribution, I would like to provide some suggestions on areas in which the ATPC should continue to focus attention. Quite naturally, the Centre should maintain its current focus on assisting African countries to integrate trade into their national development strategies by highlighting the experiences from other parts of the world and the importance of coherence between trade policy and other complementary policies. In addition, given the increasing scope and number of international trade negotiations, and the limited capacities of African countries, the ATPC should continue to provide support to African trade negotiators at the bilateral, regional and multilateral level. There are however three key areas in which I would like the Centre to do more work. These relate to intra-Africa trade, technical barriers to trade and trade facilitation.

The experience from other parts of the world shows that countries that have been able to benefit from the opportunities in international trade have first taken advantage of regional trade. Africa can be no exception and it behooves all of us who work to promote development in Africa to pay more attention to ways and means of promoting intra-Africa trade. The ATPC should endeavour to lead research and advocacy efforts in this area. Technical Barriers to Trade are important for African countries because health and environmental standards are fast becoming new obstacles in their way just as tariff barriers are being brought down through the process of trade liberalization. The ability of African countries to overcome such barriers even in new and emerging areas such as the cultivation of flowers would be critical to their efforts at diversification. Finally, I mentioned trade facilitation not only because of the undeniable importance of good infrastructural facilities for trade promotion but also because it is related to the important need to reduce the cost of doing business in Africa. High transactions costs only serve to exacerbate Africa's inability to compete in the productive sector.

In conclusion, I wish thank the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa and the Director of the Trade and Regional Integration Division for inviting me to participate in this worthy initiative. It has certainly been a worthwhile occasion and I do hope that the Centre is able to expand its base of support so that it can continue to help African countries to address the undeniable challenges that they have to overcome in order to benefit from the opportunities in the international trading system.

Embassy of Nigeria
Addis Ababa
13 April 2006