1.
The Competitiveness of African agriculture:
Revisiting trade policy reform in Africa
Antoine Bouët (IFPRI - MTID)
Sunday Odjo (AKADEMIYA2063)
November 5th, 2020

2.
Increasing deficit in staples food products
-40
-35
-30
-25
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
US$billions
Vegetable Oils Main Cereals and Cassava Sugar
Linear (Vegetable Oils) Linear (Main Cereals and Cassava) Linear (Sugar)
Source: AATM 2020

3.
What is competitiveness?
What does trade policy reform include?
• Tariffs, NTMs, customs procedures, trade infrastructure, credit and
insurance markets, transportation markets…
• A deeply changing environment: import substitution/ export
promotion/Regional and Global Value Chains) + many RECs +
WTO…

4.
Concluding remarks
• Trade policy reform cannot be dissociated from macroeconomic and
fiscal reforms + market reforms
• NTMs!!
• AfCFTA:
• Tariff barriers/NTMs/Customs procedures
• Impact of trade on food security + risk management strategy

5.
The Non-Tariff Measures issue
• Ad Valorem Equivalent of Non-Tariff Measures
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
120%
140%
160%
180%
200%
Zimbabwe Mauritius Cabo Verde Morocco Ghana Gambia Ethiopia Mali
EAV SPS EAV TBT
Source: Bao, Bouët et Traoré, 2020

6.
Potential gains related to the AfCFTA
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
No AfCFTA Full elimination of Tariffs Partial Liberlization with sensitive
products
Projection of the evolution of intra-regional trade from 2014 to 2024
All Goods Agri-food
Malabo’s target: tripling regional trade
Source: Laborde and Traoré (2019)