“As beauty is only skin-deep, so too is growth”. So Joe Amoako-Kuffour began the Brussels launch of the Africa Transformation Report by ACET (African Centre for Economic Transformation) last week. “Growth may be good, but it must be accompanied by economic transformation”. This is nicely put but relatively uncontroversial. But where ACET have done rather well, both in providing analysis and extending the metaphor, is in coming up with five measures of economic transformation that translate into DEPTH: Diversification; Export competitiveness; Productivity; Technology; and Human welfare. By providing measures of these five areas for those ...
So that African countries can continue the path of economic transformation, the role of the mining sector needs to be enhanced. Besides pure mining activities, there is vast potential to create spatial and economic spillover effects, using the businesses and services opportunities that operate around mining activities. While large business activities have been quite successful in connecting to mining value chains, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) often lack the capacities or technology to tap the full potential out of such activities. To fill in this gap, is there a role for a business-to-business platform that ...
Le 24 janvier 2014, après dix ans de tractation intense et difficile, les négociateurs de région de l’Afrique de l’Ouest et la Commission européenne se sont finalement mis d’accord sur les modalités d’un APE régional. Isabelle Ramdoo & San Bilal En effet, cette réalisation est loin d’être négligeable, étant donné les différences importantes entre les pays au sein même de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, certains, comme la Côte d’Ivoire ou le Ghana, en avaient plus besoin que d’autres, pour maintenir leurs accès sur le marché de l’Union européenne. L’impossibilité de parvenir à un accord régional aurait ...
After 10 years of tough negotiations, on 24th January 2014, West African and European Commission (EC) negotiators reached a major breakthrough on what now will be the first regional economic partnership agreement (EPA) since 2007. Isabelle Ramdoo and San Bilal This is no small achievement. Given the disparity of situations among West African countries, some needing an EPA to preserve their preferential market access to the EU, (Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana), while others were not dependent on it. Failure to reach a regional agreement with the EU would have strained, and potentially threatened to disrupt, the integration process ...
December 19, 2013
Posted: 12:06 PM CEST
by ecdpm
in Africa Change Dynamics, Conflict, security and resilience, Cross-cutting issues, ECDPM, Economic Governance, Food security, Political economy analysis, Strengthening European External Action, Trade and Regional integration
This year a lot had happened in international development and co-operation. The EU External Action Service review was launched, the African Union celebrated its’ 50th anniversary, and dialogue around the post-2015 agenda began to take centre stage. We look back over the last year of ECDPM blogs and share the top ten of 2013. The most viewed blogs have covered topics from political economy analysis to regional integration in Southern Africa. Top ten blogs of 2013: EEAS review and development: yet another EU coordination challenge? What and who drives regional integration in Southern Africa? Le ...
The 159 members of the World Trade Organization finally agreed on a deal in the early hours of Saturday 7th December in Bali, after intense and difficult negotiations, saving the multilateral trading system from the sclerosis of the past seven years. The results achieved in Bali clearly sealed the shifting power game between the emerging South and the developed world. But did Bali witness a new era of trade negotiations that will have to conjugate with an increasingly louder voice from the South or was it, on the contrary, a last successful deal, like a ...
There is still room for improvement to facilitate the trade integration between Malawi and Zambia. We recently took a trip hoping for smooth passage, but it took us two hours to cross the border at Mchinji, even though we had the Permanent Secretary for Trade on board - as well as officers from customs. Besides the normal formalities on both the Malawi and Zambian side of the border, the main delay was linked to an insurance necessary for the Malawian bus to drive on Zambian roads. This is the kind of non-tariff barrier that business ...
+++ ECDPM Challenges blog series. Post number three +++ Will 2014 be a year of implementation? If 2014 is to be a year in which we see genuine moves towards economic transformation it will likely rely less on the international agenda than domestic politics and how these interact with global economic processes. Economic transformation will only take place when governments and the private sector can align interests to make partnerships work. Otherwise, we are unlikely to see much progress in 2014. We have a busy agenda ahead of us…. On-going discussions on the post-2015 agenda will offer opportunities ...
Guest blog by Christian Kingombe The citizens of the African continent have been introduced to one grand vision of development after the other – from OAU to AU since the well-known debate between Kwame Nkrumah and Nnamdi Azikiwe. However, there is a tendency by some of the African Development Bank’s regional member countries to retreat from fulfilling regional treaty commitments, which, in some cases, would entail losing a degree of sovereignty. What is the biggest stumbling block to achieving the African Integration Vision? But after more than 50 years of solemn regional integration declarations these ...
C’est la question qui se pose après la validation du Tarif Extérieur Commun (TEC) CEDEAO (Communauté Economique Des Etats de l’Afrique de Ouest) en mars dernier à Praia (Cap Vert) par les ministres du Commerce de la région. Il faut se rappeler que tous les États membres de l’UEMOA (regroupant les pays de l’Afrique de l’Ouest francophone et la Guinée Bissau) sont aussi membres de la CEDEAO, et, qu’ainsi, le nouveau TEC CEDEAO remplacera le TEC UEMOA en vigueur jusqu’à présent (bien que les instances chargées du TEC UEMOA à Ouagadougou resteront en fonction). La zone UEMOA ...
