The
development potential of trade in agriculture and food and its contribution to
achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was the central topic of a
High-Level Panel held by the European Commission in the context of the Global
Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA), in Berlin/Germany in mid-January 2020.
The focus was on global trade with Africa and trade-in agriculture within the
continent.
What
significance do international trade in agriculture and an integrated trade
system have in global food security, and can trade in agriculture and food
contribute to achieving SDG2? Development Goal 2 formulated by the United
Nations stipulate that hunger has to be eliminated and food security and
better nutrition needs to be achieved by 2030 and that sustainable agriculture
must be promoted. This was the context of the European Union’s High-Level Panel
held in the context of the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) by the
EU Commission in mid-January 2020. Trade-in agriculture and food with African
countries and, in particular, inner-African trade were at the forefront of
discussions.
In
the Malabo Declaration of the African Union (AU) of June 2014, the African
countries committed to increasing inner-African trade threefold by 2025.
Furthermore, the creation of an African domestic market through the
introduction of a free trade zone is planned for 2020. The 55 countries of the
AU are divided into five regions; in the future, each individual region’s
comparative advantage is to play a greater role in trade.
The
participants in the event agreed that it was high time to no longer regard
Africa as a pure commodities supplier, but to also grant African trade partners
fair access for finished products to the EU. So far, these processed food
products had often met with tariff barriers.
Towards
the end of the discussion round, the African panelists demanded that Europe
contribute more to also allow informal market participants to participate in
the value chain under fair conditions, e.g. through training programmes in the
context of development cooperation. For most farmers in the countries of Africa
were still working in the informal sector, AU Commissar Josefa Sacko
emphasized.
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