Africa : how to enhance regional integration and economic growth ?

The Beijing Declaration “Toward and Even Stronger China-Africa Community with a Shared Future” - and the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Beijing Action Plan (2019-2021), resulting from the last FOCAC held on September the 3rd and 4th 2018, in Beijing, showed the China-Africa cooperation will increase deeper in the near future, clearly demonstrating a new era for both China and Africa. FOCAC currently comprises China and 53 African countries.  China, slowly but surely, is ...

The Brazilian economy pays a price in terms of productivity foregone because of its lack of trade openness. A trade opening process would bring an adjustment impact that could nonetheless be mitigated with public policies that facilitate labor mobility and job migration. Benefits from trade opening would also hinge on policy improvements in complementary areas, such as infrastructure investments, business environment and others. The Brazilian economy would benefit from opening trad ...

Salutations Thank you for the invitation to address the 2018 Africa Think Tank Summit  in this memorable city of Rabat. I thank in particular, the OCP Policy Center and the Think Tank and Civil Societies Program of the University of Pennsylvania for hosting the Summit with the theme “Deepening Expertise and Enhancing Sustainability: Insight into Contemporary Challenges Facing African Think Tanks”. Rabat, Morocco has been the sprouting ground of numerous agenda-setting instruments ...

What are the best ways forward to enhance the capacity, increase the impact, and ensure the long term viability of think tanks in Africa? These questions have been debated during the 2nd edition of African Think Tank Summit (ATTS) held in Rabat from May 9th to May 11th.  The African think tanks have positively evolved over the years in order to respond to the specific needs of their different countries. They operate as platforms to share knowledge and train young leaders, with some ...

These days, the word "crisis" is gaining a new urgency around the globe… Crisis of humanity, of water, hunger, poverty, climate. Crisis of war, destruction, terrorism. And a crisis of thought, intellectual exchange, theories transfered into reality. And a crisis of think tanks, eventually, although their work matters, since it sends signals, offers proposals and applicable solutions.  In that context, Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria and Board member of the Africa Pro ...

The recently signed African Continental Free Trade Agreement represents a countercurrent to protectionist tendencies across the Atlantic and the Pacific, and may well move the economic integration of the African continent forward. Translating the vision into action, however, will call upon signatories to undertake deeper domestic reforms and to confront specific challenges related to the agreement itself. This brief explains why the agreement is important for Africa and identifies p ...

Ce mardi 21 Mars 2018, quarante-quatre chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement réunis à Kigali (Rwanda) signaient l’accord de création de la zone de libre échange continentale (Continental Free Trade Area, CFTA). Cet accord historique marque la volonté des Etats africains d’aller vers la mise en place à l’échelle du continent d’un marché commun où les échanges de biens et de services seraient libres et la circulation des capitaux et des personnes sans contraintes. Tels que précisés dans la ...

Brazil and Morocco have been engaged in different forms of trade negotiations and committed to liberalize their trade, as they have concluded several bilateral and multilateral trade agreements whether within the WTO or in specific framework. This paper analyzes different facets of trade relations between Brazil and Morocco and assesses the potential for deeper trade integration between these two key players in the southern Atlantic. Trade flows between Brazil and Morocco have been ...