Course Description

Whether in terms of its traditional exports of raw materials or the diversified exports base required for the success of its emerging development strategy, market access is crucial to all countries. The central purpose of the WTO agreement is to bring about global trade liberalization and expansion of world trade in goods and services through improvement in access to markets by the reduction and elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers.

The three pillars of market access negotiations in the WTO are:

• The Agreement in Agriculture;
• Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA); and
• The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATs).

For many developing countries, including African countries, their interest is in reducing protection. The importance of agriculture goes beyond its contribution to GDP to include development issues involving food security, rural development, livelihood preferences, etc. in developing countries’ agriculture even though they are less certain about their ability to compete in the more liberalized markets. This course describes and analyses the agricultural agreement around the three pillars of the negotiations.

Course Objectives

• Enhanced knowledge of the basic principles of the WTO;
• Enhanced knowledge of the WTO disciplines regarding agriculture market access (Domestic Support, the Boxes, Export Competition)