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Imports and Implementation: Neglected Aspects of Trade in the Report of the Commission for Africa

I. I NTRODUCTION The Report of the Commission for Africa aims to provide a blueprint for what is needed to reverse decades of stagnation and decline in Africa and enable the region to achieve sustained economic growth and poverty reduction. The core argument is for a ‘big push’ to improve governance, reduce corruption, invest in people (especially health and education) and infrastructure and create a favourable business climate. An essential source of resources for the big push will be a doubling of aid flows to Africa, and the potential exists to absorb and spend these resources effectively. Trade has two functions in this, as elaborated below – export-led growth and increased imports to absorb foreign exchange. While the report is quite clear and often detailed in discussing how resources can be increased and spent and on how to address issues of governance, there is very little discussion of the sequencing inherent in the trade context. Will import demand be increasing at the time aid inflows are greatest, and over what timeframe should exports expand? The report gives good coverage of trade issues and has many sensible things to say. Chapter 8, ‘More Trade and Fairer Trade’, is devoted to trade, and other chapters cover related issues (in particular, section 7.3 on ‘Policies for Growth’ including agriculture and infrastructure). It has long been recognised that Africa as a region has been marginalised in the process of globalisation, especially regarding trade; for many reasons, Africa has failed to benefit from the expansion of world trade over the past two decades [Morrissey and Filatotchev, 2001]. The basic argument of the report is that more needs to be done, globally and within African