United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (May 2014-April 2015)

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1 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (May 2014-April 2015) UNCTAD s support to the New Partnership for Africa s Development (NEPAD) During the period under consideration, UNCTAD supported African countries in implementing their developmental objectives in relation to the NEPAD thematic areas of agriculture and food security; climate change and national resource management; regional integration and infrastructure; human development; economic and corporate governance; and cross-cutting issues of gender, ICT and capacity development. UNCTAD's support cuts across its 3 main pillars of operations, namely research and policy analysis, technical assistance, and inter-governmental consensus-building. This note emphasizes those activities where UNCTAD worked by collaborating with other UN agencies, and institutions. It highlights UNCTAD's advocacy work in support of Africa's development. Furthermore, it provides some examples of areas where UNCTAD's activities have had an impact in Africa. The final section indicates the financial resources committed to Africa in 2014 and in previous years. I. Activities in support of NEPAD through research and policy analysis UNCTAD had an impact on policy implementation in Africa through the policy recommendations contained in its flagship reports, particularly the Economic Development in Africa Report (EDAR) 2014 on "Catalyzing investment for transformative growth in Africa". The Report contends that investment is a major driver of long-run growth and development but that average investment rates on the continent remain low relative to what is considered necessary to achieve development goals and relative to the average for developing countries. The Report warns that if current investment trends continue, Africa's recent growth performance could be jeopardized and proved not to be sustainable. The EDAR 2014 underscores the need to enhance the contribution of investment in Africa to growth through boosting investment rates, improving the productivity of existing and new investments, and ensuring that investment goes to strategic and priority sectors deemed crucial for economic transformation. Furthermore, UNCTAD helps African countries create a favourable environment to benefit from opportunities generated by information and communication technologies (ICTs). One way in which UNCTAD achieves this objective is through its research and policy analysis on ICT. In 2014, a publication prepared in close collaboration with the ILO entitled Empowering Women Entrepreneurs through Information and Communications Technologies: A Practical Guide was published. It highlights key areas where ICTs play a crucial role in enabling women s business to become more efficient, productive and profitable. The publication provides a foundation for governments and development practitioners to understand the key factors, challenges and dynamics involved in empowering women entrepreneurs through ICTs, as well as recommendations for future action. It has been cited as one of the 100 most important reports on gender. UNCTAD is conducting research and analysis on the gender ramifications of macro-economic policies, and specifically trade policies, in selected developing countries. In Africa, these include Cape Verde, Gambia, Lesotho, Angola and Rwanda. The case studies illustrate some of the structural, social and cultural constraints that create or perpetuate gender inequality in sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, services and manufacturing that have been or can be dynamized by trade. For example, the study Who is benefiting from trade liberalization in Rwanda? A gender perspective was published in The

2 study assesses the impacts of Rwanda's trade policies on women and examines their role in the country's economy. A national workshop, attended by around 50 participants mainly from governmental institutions, but also from the private sector, the business community and women's associations, was conducted in Kigali, Rwanda in November 2014 to present the findings and recommendations of the study with the aim of enhancing the capacities of local policy-makers to mainstream gender in trade policy and familiarizing relevant national stakeholders with the methodologies used. A paper entitled Looking at trade policy through a 'gender lens' was published in January It presents the findings of seven country case studies on trade and gender (five of the countries analyzed are in Africa: Angola, Cape Verde, the Gambia, Lesotho, Rwanda) which examine the impact of trade liberalization and facilitation on gender equality and women's well-being. The case studies highlight the ways in which a gender perspective can contribute to a deeper and richer understanding of trade policy and performance by emphasizing the redistributive effects of trade at the country level. II. Collaboration with other UN agencies and organizations UNCTAD collaborates with many other UN agencies, donors, member governments and other international institutions to deliver on its goal to support the implementation of NEPAD and on fostering economic development in Africa. For instance, UNCTAD assisted several African countries in a GAP analysis as regards the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade Facilitation, which in turn helped the countries in the preparation of formal Notifications to the WTO Secretariat. During this process, African countries received capacity building support from UNCTAD, in close collaboration with other agencies, notably the International Trade Centre (ITC) and WTO, as well as regional organizations, including the East African community (EAC), Trade Mark East Africa (TMEA), Trade Policy Training Center in Africa, and West African Economic and Monetary Union. During the second half of 2014, UNCTAD helped numerous African countries to prepare for the implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA). Thanks to financing provided by the Government of Sweden to the UNCTAD s multi-donor Trade Facilitation Trust Fund, UNCTAD was able to support developing countries and LDCs in the finalization of national Trade Facilitation Implementation Plans, the categorization of TFA measures, the preparation of project proposals, and/or training on specific Trade Facilitation issues. Examples of African countries that received support in drafting national TF implementation plans are Botswana, Mauritius and Swaziland. In Nigeria, a National TF seminar was organized together with ITC in order to help the country towards the notification of Trade Facilitation Measures under the WTO TFA. In Uganda, a National TF seminar was also organized together with TMEA, towards the same end. As another example of collaboration, further to the signing in March 2013 of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of cooperation on performance measurement between UNCTAD and the WCO (World Customs Organization), the development of a first version of the ASYCUDA Performance Indicators Module (ASYPM) was completed. Within the framework of the UNCTAD Liberia Project and of a NORAD funded WCO umbrella project, supporting the promotion of integrity in the Liberia Customs, the installation of the pilot version took place in January 2014 and went live in March UNCTAD s Business Facilitation eregulations Programme helps countries simplify and automate their rules and procedures relating to investment and entrepreneurship. Its eregulations system is operational in 16 African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Comoros, Côte d'ivoire, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo and United Republic of Tanzania). The system contributes to increased transparency and greater 2

3 institutional capacity, thereby facilitating business and making African countries more attractive to foreign investors. In 2014, UNCTAD together with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) assisted Cameroon's Ministry of SMEs in installing the eregulations system in 2 more regions thereby ensuring that simplification measures implemented in the capital also benefit entrepreneurs elsewhere in the country. Both organizations also assisted Tanzania's Investment Promotion Agency (IPA) in installing an online registration system to reduce the number of steps required to start a business in the country from 21 to just 7. With European Union (EU) support and UNCTAD technical assistance, Cameroon is benefitting from the same technology and plans to offer online business registration to all entrepreneurs by the end of Furthermore, UNCTAD collaborates with many governments, donors, UN and other organizations to implement activities under the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) and on trade and development issues. For example, UNCTAD is supporting the Gambia and Senegal in the implementation phase of the policies and strategies identified in their Diagnostic Trade Integration Study (DTIS) action matrix. In Senegal, UNCTAD assisted the government in the elaboration of a Tier 2 project on transforming and commercializing fruits in Casamance, Senegal. UNCTAD in cooperation with ITC and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization has assisted the government of Benin in the formulation of Tier 2 projects. The project of Benin has been approved in July 2014 and the Letter of Agreements signed by UNCTAD on February 5, The Market access and trade laws for LDCs project financed by Italy (a multi-year project that started in 2010) helps to increase utilization of market access initiatives in favour of LDCs. The project supports rural communities in using geographical indications and to increase their exports and supply capacity of traditional products. Several workshops on Geographical Indications were held in 2014 in Africa, in particular: a workshop in December 2014 in Madagascar on: "Promoting traditional products: moving towards a Geographical Indication (GI) registration for the Pink Rice of Madagascar" and in Ethiopia on: "Training on Geographical Indications in Harenna Forest Wild coffee from Ethiopia". UNCTAD has just completed a project in collaboration with the Commonwealth Secretariat and African EXIM Bank on "Promoting Regional Value Chains in Sub-Saharan Africa." The one year project, which was initiated in May 2013, identified potential regional value chains (RVC) in leather industries in Africa. The main objective of the project was to promote developmental regionalism in Sub-Saharan Africa by identifying and encouraging potential regional value chains. A sectoral approach was adopted whereby regional value chains were identified for Leather industries in Sub- Saharan Africa. Leather and leather products (LLP) industry provides a tremendous opportunity for the region to form regional value chains and add greater value to the region's exports. At present, the region is the largest source of the basic raw material of the industry, i.e., leather and exports it with little value-addition. Further, the region's global imports of leather products have been steadily rising since the past two decades. Nevertheless, the industry has the potential to initiate regional value chains and raise export competitiveness and domestic value-addition in many countries of the region. Given the labor-intensive nature of the industry, it can also generate large scale employment for low skilled labour. UNCTAD continues to collaborate closely with the African Development Bank. The Transparency in Trade (TNT) initiative, implemented jointly by UNCTAD, ITC, the World Bank and the African Development Bank progressed further, especially on developing the data collection methodology, data collection itself and measurement of non-tariff measures. In this regard, UNCTAD collected data in 13 out of 15 ECOWAS countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d'ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, 3

4 Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo). Data will be used to support regional integration efforts in Africa. In 2014 UNCTAD concluded a project in SADC to assess the potential of non-tariff measures to support deeper economic regional integration (project with German GIZ). III. Advocacy Work in support of Africa's development UNCTAD contributes towards raising awareness and advocating on a range of development issues of interest to African countries including those with special needs such as LDCS, LLDCs and SIDS. Such advocacy takes place through the fora, meetings and seminars that UNCTAD organizes or in which UNCTAD participates, in order to provide technical and substantive contributions. Furthermore these platforms of dialogue allow stakeholders to brainstorm and exchange ideas and best practices on policy formulation and implementation. For instance, UNCTAD made substantive and technical contributions to the Ministerial Meeting on "New Partnership for Building Productive Capacities in LDCs", which was held in Cotonou, Benin, from 28 to 31 July UNCTAD's contributions included: a) organizing a side event on "indicators for benchmarking productive capacities in LDCs"; b) preparing concept notes that served as background documents for the discussions on thematic events such as policy and institutional framework for building productive capacities and the participation of LDCs in regional and global commodity value chains; and c) actively participating in several panel discussions. Furthermore, UNCTAD made substantive and technical contributions to the outcome document of the ministerial conference titled: "Cotonou Agenda for productive capacity building in LDCs", which was adopted by the Ministerial Meeting. At the meeting the Secretary General of UNCTAD called for new international support measures for LDCs that should go beyond the confines of ODA and technical assistance and include transfer of technology and know-how as well as building technological capabilities and innovation in these countries. The UNCTAD side event on indicators to measure (benchmark) productive capacities attracted a lot of participants and led to interesting discussions with several encouraging and constructive comments on the first Productive Capacity Index (PCI) of UNCTAD. UNCTAD's active engagement in the intergovernmental preparatory processes, and regional review meetings of the Almaty Programme of Action (PoA) greatly assisted in reshaping the conference outcome - Vienna Programme of Action (VPoA)- to include border development challenges (such as building productive capacities and commodity diversification) in parallel with transit-transport problems facing LLDCs. The side events organized by UNCTAD led to a recognition of the need for LLDCs to articulate: i) an agenda for commodity diversification as part of the LLDCs' respective development agendas and priorities; ii) an urgent need to start creating new areas of activity, and shift resources from low value-added and low productivity sectors to higher-value added and high productivity sectors; iii) policies and strategies to intensify regional and sub-regional integration and promoting partnership with transit developing countries and other development partners and (iv) ways and means for building LLDCs capacity to formulate and implement policies and strategies related to trade, investment and improving their participation in regional and global commodity value chains. In October 2014, at the UNCTAD World Investment Forum (WIF), Ministers and experts from African countries participated in a number of high level events. The Ministerial Round Table on investing in the SDGs convened investment, trade and development ministers from 29 countries and two heads of international organizations, 13 of which represented African countries. The outcome of the meeting will be presented to the United Nations General Assembly, and will feed into the Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa from 13 to 16 July 2015 and ultimately into the goal-setting 4

5 Conference on the Sustainable Development Goals in New York in September During the WIF, a Special Event of OilGasMine was organized on the theme, Achieving sustainable development goals through investment in Oil and Gas Field Services. The Trade Commissioner of the African Union Commission (AUC) expressed interest in exploring the possibilities of implementing a proposal to establish an African Gas Hub. IV. Impact of Activities For the period under review, UNCTAD continued to have an impact on African development in a range of areas. Here are some examples. During the reporting period, 52 African countries benefited from UNCTAD's assistance in the area of investment and enterprise. The activities carried out were in accordance with the principles of NEPAD, especially with respect to the promotion of good governance, transparency and the rule of law, which helped build the competitiveness of African countries and enhance their attractiveness as destinations for foreign investment and the establishment of businesses. For example, Africa has been the main beneficiary of the UNCTAD investment policy review (IPR) programme since its inception in During the reporting period, UNCTAD published IPRs for Congo and Sudan. UNCTAD also launched the preparation of the IPR of Madagascar. Around five or six years after the completion of the IPR, UNCTAD prepares a report that assesses the extent of the implemented recommendations. In July 2014, UNCTAD published the Implementation Report for Zambia. Indeed, throughout the reporting period, the IPR programme continued to demonstrate its relevance, quality and impact. The Implementation Reports prepared by UNCTAD for African countries showed good to strong implementation record, increased interest by existing investors, and increased capacity to market investment opportunities. In 2014, UNCTAD also assisted a number of African countries in reviewing their model bilateral investment treaties (BITs) with a view to enhancing the development dimension and legal clarity of the models. These included Angola, Egypt and Nigeria. During the reporting period, UNCTAD continued to provide assistance to the 16 established African Empretec centres through advisory services, policy workshops and seminars based on the newly developed Entrepreneurship Policy Framework (EPF), training to entrepreneurs and SMEs, and support to regional networks and initiatives. Two new Empretec centres in Africa (Cameroon and the Gambia) have also been launched. In selected African countries, (Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia), UNCTAD continued to identify business linkage opportunities, including effective partnerships with large firms. In the context of ONE UN projects, construction sectors in Zambia, tourism and organic food as well as mining in Tanzania have been the targets. For example in Zambia, a memorandum of understanding with Lafarge Zambia is being finalized, securing a joint sponsorship for the construction of 6,000 residential units in the copper mining area, generating green jobs for local suppliers. UNCTAD's ASYCUDA Programme provides not only increased revenues collected by Customs of often more than 25% in LDCs, but also helps reduce clearing times and costs depending on the initial situation (i.e. time delays may be reduced from weeks to days or hours). The following African countries benefited from the Programmes support in 2014: Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cabo Verde, Central African Republic, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cote d'ivoire, Djibouti, Guinea, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Namibia, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Swaziland, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Numerous training sessions were organized allowing for the transfer of ASYCUDA know-how and skills to national teams, 5

6 thus ensuring the long term sustainability of the system by national Customs administrations. In 2014, the Government of Sao Tomé and Principe, after having pursued a reform of its Customs Administration which led to migration to the latest version of the ASYCUDA system, financed through its own funds a second phase to extend the project beyond Customs to other governmental agencies in order to develop and implement a Single Window System centered on the Customs system and using the ASYCUDA technology solutions. A strong accounting infrastructure that produces high-quality corporate reporting is a critical factor for attracting investment, allocating scarce resources and promoting financial stability. However, this still remains a challenge for many African countries. During the reporting period, a number of African member States benefited from UNCTAD s support in the areas of accounting and reporting as well as environmental, social and governance related issues. For example, the thirty-first session of International Standards Accounting and Reporting (ISAR), which took place in Geneva, in 2014, in parallel with the WIF, involved the participation of over 73 participants or experts from 21 African countries. African representatives from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d'ivoire and Sudan, having used the UNCTAD Accounting Development Tool (ADT)), affirmed its usefulness in assessing their regulatory, institutional and human-capacity arrangements and for developing action plans. They asked UNCTAD to roll-out the ADT more widely. In terms of human capacity building, UNCTAD conducts many training workshops in Africa, especially through its TrainForTrade programme. In 2014 TrainForTrade delivered 8 face-to-face and e-learning courses in cooperation with other UNCTAD programmes. A total of 848 trade operators (40% women) from 23 developing countries, including 14 least developed countries, participated in these courses. An example from Africa concerns a project that was launched in West Africa, under UNCTAD's TrainForTrade (TFT) Programme, in collaboration with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission, to support the development of harmonization of laws on electronic commerce in the region. The project will provide technical assistance and capacity-building activities over the period with focus on The Legal Aspects of e-commerce and E-commerce for Practitioners. It is funded by the UN Development Account. The African countries participating in this project are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo. V. Financial resources committed to Africa. The total expenditures on national and regional projects in support of Africa in 2014 were US$10,425,656 (27.5% of total expenditure compared to US$9,312,149 (23% of total expenditure) in 2013 and US$ 9,364,120 (25.8% of total expenditure) in