Infrastructure provision and Africa's trade and development prospects: Potential role and relevance of The WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA)

Nicholas C. Niggli and Kodjo Osei-Lah

No ERSD-2014-20, WTO Staff Working Papers from World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division

Abstract: Two issues stand out in this conversation. The first concerns the unfinished business of the global fight against the scourge of poverty, which impacts one region more than most: Africa. At the same time, a key pre-requisite for economic performance - affordable and efficient public infrastructure and services - remains lacking in this region - notably, in Sub-Saharan Africa. To address this, the region itself has initiated a major, long-term, continent-wide infrastructure development programme which is intended to fix this problem sustainably - namely, the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA). Its success foreshadows an economic transformation that will potentially usher in an emergent Africa in the 21st century. Secondly, in one area of economic activity - trade in government procurement markets - the revised WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) is emerging as a multi-dimensional tool of trade, governance and development. The thesis of this paper is that GPA participation by African countries - a prospect which, to date, they have declined to take up - holds strong potential to reinforce the positive effects of PIDA and to contribute to the region's growth and development more generally. [...]

Keywords: Africa; Agreement on Government Procurement; Aid; Corruption; Development; Developing Countries; Economic Integration; Foreign Investment; Foreign Trade; GDP; Governance; Government Procurement; GPA; Infrastructure; Integration; International Trade; International Trade Organizations; LDCs; Liberalization; Openness; Procurement; Public Goods; Public-Private Partnerships; Public Procurement; Regional Integration; Strategic Trade; Trade; Trade Agreements; Trade Policy; WTO (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 F14 F15 F63 H44 H54 H57 O19 O24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr and nep-int
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:wtowps:ersd201420

DOI: 10.30875/cb7d6044-en

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