The Prime Minister is leading a two-day trade mission to South Africa and Nigeria aimed at exploring commercial opportunities and seeing how best to support the Africa free trade initiative.
Traidcraft believes there is one obvious thing our Prime Minister could do. David Cameron must persuade Europe to give all African countries fair access to the EU. For years, EU officials have been engaged in tortuous negotiations with different African countries and regions, seeking to agree separate Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). This process, together with recent Commission proposals to withdraw market access from certain African countries, is likely to set regional integration back decades and pit countries against each other, instead of supporting them to work together.
Traidcraft’s Policy Director, Paul Spray, says, “It was a breath of fresh air when the Government included support for an Africa free trade area in the original Coalition Agreement. It must persuade the EU to drop the tired trade negotiations which are poisoning relations with Africa – and instead make the bold move of offering all African goods duty-free entry to Europe.”
The Catholic Agency For Overseas Development (CAFOD), has also expressed a view on the Prime Minister’s visit to Africa. Traidcraft broadly agrees with Cafod’s position.
Cafod’s Response
As always, headline-grabbing figures, such as David Cameron’s observation that only 12% of African trade is with other African countries, ignore the activities of poor men and especially women who make up the other half of Africa’s cross-border trade that goes unrecorded.
Poor women in remote rural areas set up as informal traders to take advantage of different prices across borders and to earn a living. Mr Cameron’s Africa Free Trade Initiative needs to benefit them if it is to help Africa to grow in a way that reduces poverty.
Too often big policy initiatives and spending plans ignore the sectors where the poor are largely located – especially small businesses and the rural economy – to focus almost exclusively on boosting export sectors.
Yet the need for inclusive growth is the key lesson from Korea’s impressive development record, also cited by Mr Cameron. Korea invested in universal education and carried out land reforms that ensured that poor men and women could participate in and contribute to its economic miracle.
The real unexploited engine of growth in Africa is the poor men and women whose economic activities are not counted in growth figures and whose needs are rarely prioritised in these high profile economic strategies.
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CONTACT: Media Consultant Di Harper on 020 7242 3955 or 07932 135 780
