Multilateral Institutions and African Economic Integration

A matter of long-standing policy concern is the limited extent to which many countries in Africa have been able to diversify their economies. The global phenomenon of supply chain trade in principle generates opportunities for specialization in processing activities and labour- or natural-resource intensive tasks that are part of international value chains. This paper discusses what role international organizations – in particular the global trade body, the WTO, and the multilateral financial institutions – have played in assisting efforts to enhance the ability of firms in Africa to participate in value chains by lowering trade costs, suggests some implications for trade governance at both the national and global level.