Africa’s Integration into the WTO Multilateral Trading System: Academic Support and the Role of the WTO Chairs

The Marrakesh Agreement establishing the WTO recognized the need for positive steps to be taken to ensure that developing countries, and especially the least developed among them, secure a share in the growth of international trade that is commensurate with their economic development needs. This article discusses how the WTO helps to facilitate Africa’s integration into the WTO multilateral trading system. It is argued that while African countries are actively engaged in the work of the WTO and are pursuing their economic and policy interests, some key challenges remain. These include further diversifying their production, linking to global value chains (GVCs) and developing adequate infrastructure to facilitate digital trade so that it becomes a vehicle for economic growth. The WTO, working closely with partner institutions, supports Africa in its endeavours to tackle some of these challenges, offering a range of programmes that are geared towards trade capacity-building. It is argued that the work undertaken by WTO Chairs and academic institutions under the aegis of the WTO’s Chairs Programme (WCP) is of critical importance in providing the analytical underpinnings for the policy choices that will encourage fuller integration into the multilateral trading system. This programme was significantly expanded and deepened in 2021 with a view to strengthening its capacity to provide support to beneficiaries and especially least-developed countries (LDCs) (largely African countries) so that they can more fully embrace the multilateral trading system. trade, capacity-building, Africa, WTO, global value chains, academic support