Economic development in Africa: Unlocking the potential of Africa’s services trade for growth and development

The Trade and Development Board

1. Welcomes the UNCTAD secretariat’s Economic Development in Africa Report 2015, subtitled “Unlocking the Potential of Africa’s Services Trade for Growth and Development”;
    
2. Recognizes the crucial role of the services sector in the economic development of Africa and the renewed political commitment by African leaders to boosting intra-African trade, and to creating a continental free trade area by 2017, as reflected in decisions of African Heads of State and Government at the African Union;
    
3. Takes note of the main message of the report that the services sector has the potential to become a significant driver of sustained economic growth and structural transformation in Africa, and therefore encourages policies that will enhance complementarity between the services sector and other sectors of the economy;
    
4. Stresses the importance of supporting Africa in implementing trade facilitation measures in order to realize the potential contribution of the services sector to economic growth in Africa;
    
5. Acknowledges that challenges in infrastructure services contributed to suboptimal performances between 2010 and 2012, and underscores the need to address various regulatory and policy shortcomings with a view to developing smart strategies and ensuring continued growth trajectories of African countries;
    
6. Recognizes that there is a need to reform the supply of infrastructure services in Africa and that Governments have a critical role in designing regulation and policies that support this process;
    
7. Recognizes that many African countries have undergone a process of shifting from agriculture to mainly non-tradable services, without going through a process of manufacturing development marked by significant productivity improvements, formal job creation, exports of sophisticated goods and the application of technology to the wider economy, suggesting that the complementarities among all sectors are yet to be fully developed in order for Africa to unlock the potential of services for agriculture and manufacturing;
    
8. Acknowledges that Governments have a critical role in designing regulations and policies that will support African firms to effectively exploit opportunities for trade through global services value chains, where major investments in transport, logistics and energy infrastructure are required;
    
9. Underscores the potential role of services in enhancing regional integration efforts and processes with a view to boosting the prospective benefits of greater intra-African trade, in the context of the African continental free trade area;
    
10. Recognizes the role of the informal sector, which accounts for 50–80 per cent of gross domestic product in Africa, and particularly the importance of informal sector employment for vulnerable populations including women and youth, and encourages national efforts with the support of the international community in formalizing the informal services sector with a view to enhancing its productivity;
     
11. Recognizes that progress has also been made in some aspects of services trade in Africa, in particular transport, tourism and the free movement of persons;
     
12. Notes with concern that, although African countries have made efforts to address services trade at the national, regional and global levels, a policy disconnect prevails between these three levels, hampering Africa’s opportunities to tap into the benefits of greater services trade;
     
13. Stresses the need for national policies to address the informality of the services sector by promoting efficient tax systems, lowering regulatory burdens, providing small business support services and improving access to credit for small firms;
     
14. Stresses the importance of the interaction of trade and services and other areas of trade in the interest of harnessing Africa’s trade potential, and calls upon the international community to support Africa’s efforts in ensuring that the services sector contributes optimally to Africa’s economic growth;
     
15. Urges development partners, in a position to do so, to continue supporting the efforts of African countries to sustain public and private investment in infrastructure sectors so that they are able to achieve Africa’s development as well as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;
     
16. Requests UNCTAD, within its mandate, to continue its work on the three pillars and utilizing available resources for unlocking the potential of Africa’s trade in services and the contributions of services to Africa’s growth and inclusive and sustainable development.