Canada, Africa and the inclusive trade agenda

ABSTRACT

Canada's inclusive trade agenda has been put forward as part of the solution to ensuring more and better jobs for more people in both developed and developing countries. The agenda, however, remains a work in progress. Discussions have too narrowly focused on process outcomes through the promotion of a trade policy making process that is more consultative, inclusive, participatory and transparent. Canada's support for an inclusive trade agenda can have a real and meaningful influence globally if it is more clearly defined based on a common understanding on what elements are essential for trade and trade policy to yield real change and substantive benefits for all. Formal structures for consultations to take place alongside and to feed into and influence the trade policy making process are required. Africa is the best starting point for Canada to put such a policy into practice with real impact on the ground.

RÉSUMÉ

Le programme commercial inclusif du Canada a été mis en avant en tant que partie de la solution pour garantir des emplois plus nombreux et de meilleure qualité à un plus grand nombre de personnes à la fois dans les pays développés et les pays en développement. L'élaboration du programme, cependant, reste un travail en cours. Les discussions ont été trop étroitement axées sur les résultats du processus par la promotion d'un processus d'élaboration des politiques commerciales plus consultatif, inclusif, participatif et transparent. Le soutien du Canada à un programme commercial inclusif peut avoir une influence réelle et significative au niveau mondial s'il est plus clairement défini sur la base d'une compréhension commune des éléments essentiels pour que le commerce et la politique commerciale produisent des changements réels et des avantages substantiels pour tous. Il est nécessaire de mettre en place des structures formelles pour que les consultations puissent avoir lieu parallèlement au processus d'élaboration de la politique commerciale, l'alimenter et l'influencer. L'Afrique est le meilleur point de départ pour le Canada dans la mise en pratique d'une telle politique avec un impact réel sur le terrain.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive trade agenda
• progressive trade agenda
• Canada-Africa relations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

David Luke is Coordinator of the African Trade Policy Centre at the UN Economic Commission for Africa with the rank of a director at the Commission. He is responsible for leading ECA's research, policy advisory services, training and capacity development on inclusive trade policies and in particular the boosting intra-African trade and the continental free trade area initiatives. His portfolio also includes WTO, EPAs, Brexit, AGOA, Africa's trade with emerging economies, and trade and cross-cutting policy areas such as trade, industrialization and structural transformation, trade and gender, trade and public health and trade and climate change. Prior to joining ECA in 2014, he served as UNDP trade policy adviser in Southern Africa and Geneva and also as Senior Economist and Chief of Trade at the Organization for African Unity/African Union Commission, and as an Associate Professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

Phil Rourke is Director of the Centre for Trade Policy and Law, Carleton University and Canadian Project Director of a trade and development project with the UNECA-based African Trade Policy Centre (ATPC). He is a lecturer in trade policy and trade negotiations at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA) at Carleton University and the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa. He is Director of two Canada-sponsored funds ($16 million in total) that provide technical assistance to developing countries in the implementation of their trade and development strategies.

Notes

1 Source: World Bank national accounts data, and OECD National Accounts data files.

2 Source: World Trade Organization, and World Bank GDP estimates.

3 The “inclusive trade agenda” is a common term used by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and its members. Canada initially referred to its inclusive trade agenda as “Canada's progressive trade agenda”. For an explanation of the change: https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/canadian-officials-instructed-to-stop-using-progressive-to-describe-trade-deals-documents-show