Outcomes

The participants, including high-level government officials and representatives of academia, civil society and the private sector, examined optimal strategies for foreign direct investment, regional integration, special and differential treatment in the multilateral trading system, and export-led growth that would help achieve sustainable human development.

Regarding trade arrangements proposed by the EU for a successor to the Lomé Convention, which envisages economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with groupings of ACP countries, participants recommended that research (to be driven by African institutions) should stress the development dimension of EPAs. This would allow African developing countries to better articulate and negotiate their interests in such areas as the improvement of the EU. s GSP on the basis of new differentiation criteria by explicitly locating EPA activities within the multilateral framework, and improving supply-side measures, including investment, to encourage industrial restructuring and diversification.

Participants noted that poverty alleviation and food security concerns were among the most critical dimensions of sustainable human development in the African context, and that these are affected by trade liberalisation and the rationalisation of import barriers. As both the depth and speed of import liberalisation are subject to significant constraints imposed by the need for fiscal revenue and for the strengthening of productive capacity, they recommended that African countries should rationalise their trade regimes, keep their protection and revenue tariffs at moderate levels and improve the transparency of their import control systems. Participants recommended that further and widespread reductions in intra-African trade barriers could rapidly increase trade in non-traditional exports - especially processed agricultural, food and feed products - that tend to be labour-intensive and therefore constitute a significant contributor poverty alleviation through creating employment opportunities.

Regarding foreign direct investment to Africa, which stood at USD 6.3bn in 1998 or around 1% of global FDI,  recommendations for using trade policy strategically included improving domestic policy environments, strengthening regional integration efforts, and regional and national policy formulation processes to attract FDI and ensure that it contributed to national development and sustainable human development goals. Participants also recommended an enhancement of data collection capacity to support such strategies (particularly on FDI flows), to research why FDI has not been forthcoming and to identify . desirable. FDI. Participants also questioned the viability of export processing zones as export development strategies for Africa, and concluded that there was a need to evaluate past experiences with a focus on high return goods/sectors and where African economies have greater dynamic comparative advantages.

Participants, who agreed to establish a 'research network on globalisation, liberalisation and sustainable development' , recommended work on an African strategy for formulating improved special and differential treatment provisions in current and future WTO agreements. The strategy would need to incorporate, among others, performance indicators that clearly reflect sustainable human development and sustainable development objectives and a shift from timeframes to performance threshold/milestones that are defined in sustainable human development terms.