Course Description

African countries need to be proactive in pursuing their interests in the work and negotiations at the WTO. This course plays a useful role in building the capacity of trade policy officials in Africa, to enable them effectively pursue their interests at the WTO. Given the centrality of market access, the course puts much emphasis on the three pillars of market access negotiations in the WTO. Other areas include TRIPS agreement; special and differential treatment; preferential market access in goods and services; technical assistance and capacity-building. The course is classified as advanced level training course and therefore, brings together high-level practitioners from government, to discuss issues of key interest to African economies and opportunities to secure pro-development trade agreements.

Course Objectives

The main objectives of this Course are:

• to strengthen trade negotiation capacity of participants through an assessment and analysis of the current state of play of the Doha Round;
• to help participants identify African interests and key areas of importance to African countries in current negotiations; and
• to equip participants with analytical skills to be able to provide assessments and analyses of key issues in the current negotiations.