By IPS Correspondents
DAR ES SALAAM, Oct 4 2007 (IPS)

The ‘‘Mobilising Aid For Trade: Focussing on Africa’’ high level conference ended this week with admonitions from the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

For governments ‘‘to have 50 trade priorities is to have no priorities,’’ WTO chief Pascal Lamy said at the closing ceremony of the conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Oct 2.

‘‘The challenge for countries – and this is a big one, politically – is to agree on the two or three objectives that will impact most on their trade growth and then pursue them consistently over the long term.’’

Similarly, WTO Deputy Director-General Valentine Rugwabiza warned African leaders that funds from rich countries to move economies towards export-orientation (‘‘Aid for Trade’’) will be contingent upon the prioritisation of the reduction of trade barriers in development policies.

The two-day conference was organised by the WTO, the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). It was attended by African trade and finance ministers and officials from the organising parties and the continent’s sub-regional trade blocs.

According to Lamy, infrastructure, trade facilitation, trade financing, food safety and technical standards were underscored at the conference as some of the main areas for improvement.

Landlocked Botswana, in southern Africa, has a plan but needs to raise financing, said LT Mokalake, the country’s assistant minister for trade and industry. A wider network of tarred roads and better access to ports in neighbouring South Africa would boost trade in his diamond-producing nation, he said.

‘‘Our priority is to break free from the handicap of being landlocked,’’ Mokalake said. ‘‘‘Aid for Trade’ will help us with better market access. If it the markets open up and we&#39re not ready, there will be a problem with competition.’’

The idea behind ‘‘Aid for Trade’’ is for poor nations to come up with goal-oriented action plans and for donors to target their investments to fill infrastructure gaps and lend technical expertise. Sub-Saharan Africa gets about 10 billion dollars a year in outside help for infrastructure, but needs roughly double the funds, according to the World Bank.

Lamy called on African nations to cooperate to reduce infrastructure bottlenecks, improve transport corridors and strengthen economic ties with one another. He also appealed for rich countries, on their side, to live up to their development aid promises.

Wealthy nations, including the United States and the United Kingdom, promised in 2005 to double annual aid to Africa to 50 billion dollars a year by 2010 and to spend 0.7 percent of their gross national product on aid by 2015. This last target was set in 1970 but is yet to be achieved by developed countries.

‘‘Aid for Trade’’, which currently accounts for about one third of international aid expenditure, is likely to double over the next three years, said Lamy.

The strategy, still in the planning phase, is meant to complement the Doha development round of WTO talks aimed at liberalising poor countries’ markets further while cutting farm subsidies in rich countries.

However, Lamy acknowledged that ‘‘‘Aid for Trade’’ is no substitute for a successful Doha development round’’.

Some critics say ‘‘Aid for Trade’’ is a new catchphrase for the same old development initiatives. Others worry that trade-related donations could come with strings attached and hold negative implications for the economies of poor nations.

Aid needs to be made predictable and given without any obligations in order to be effective, Tanzanian Vice-President Ali Mohamed Shein said in his address at the conference. He supported the idea of ‘‘Aid for Trade’’ but added that it should be combined with radical changes.

For instance, mineral and oil production in Africa is largely controlled by foreign companies, which means few of its benefits register in countries on the world&#39s poorest continent, he said. This needed to change.

Africa is experiencing its highest economic growth in three decades, growing at an average of five percent and expected to hit seven percent in 2009, backed by rising commodity prices ‘‘and economic reforms’’, according to Donald Kaberuka, president of the Tunis-based African Development Bank.

Ideas collected at the African meeting, and ones from similar events held this month in Latin America and Asia, will be presented at the first international ‘‘Aid for Trade’’ review to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, from Nov 20 to 21. At that meeting, experts are expected to move the plan beyond the drawing board with clear timetables and cost estimates.

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