Africa’s Trade in Services and Economic Partnership Agreements

Trade can play a crucial role in the
development of services sectors in Africa. Services offer
new dynamic opportunities for exports, especially for
land-locked countries, while opening up to imports of
services and foreign direct investment is a key mechanism to
increase competition and drive greater efficiency in the
provision of services in the domestic economy. Lower prices,
higher quality and wider access to services raises
productivity improves competitiveness and is critical for
poverty reduction. But trade opening may need to be
coordinated with regulatory reforms, to ensure efficient
outcomes, while additional policies may be required to
ensure that public policy objectives regarding equity are
achieved. This places emphasis on the capacity to define and
implement sound regulatory policies for services sectors,
capacity that is limited in many African countries.
Regulatory and trade reforms in Africa need to be supported
with technical and financial assistance. Such assistance
should be available to all African countries that wish to
reform their services sectors, whether they negotiate and
sign an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) or not. An
independently managed fund for services trade reform in
Africa, organized around common priority sectors, that would
allocate resources to support implementation of reforms and
consultants according to expertise, not nationality, will be
the most appropriate vehicle for providing technical
assistance and building capacity.