Intellectual Property

New technologies and their applications drive profound industrial and societal reorganization. Despite improved efficiency and aggregated enormous wealth associated with certain economic structure and business models as enabled by technologies, a constant issue has always been proper policy responses in dealing with negative externalities, including the alarming gap between rich and poor. Dramatic social reactions against trade and globalization are a good testimony of this kind of policy failure.

With the advent of disruptive technologies, rapid applications of foundational technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), and distributed ledger technologies (DLTs), will further alter the way industries operate and crash some fundamental concepts in existing trade policies. The challenge for the global trade community is keeping up with developments and harnessing the power of disruptive technologies and reflecting relevant adaptations in future trade rule-making and negotiations agenda, with a view to among other things achieving sustainable development. A few countries and regional integration schemes are already experimenting on innovating in this regard.

During the session, the participants had an interactive interdisciplinary exchange on the application of disruptive technologies and related business models at company level in international trade, at government level in the context of trade policy formulation and implementation, and emerging collaboration and potential issues at international level. The discussion also focused on opportunities and challenges for new and the existing global trade and investment frameworks, directions of the next generation of global trade policy, and their implications on inclusiveness and environmental sustainability.  

Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz, Chief Executive of ICTSD, is the moderator.

In supporting and participating in the organisation of this regional multistakeholder policy dialogue on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), ICTSD aimed at filling important knowledge gaps around the agreement’s implementation and phase 2 negotiations commencing in August 2018. In particular, this covered areas such as e-commerce, investment facilitation, competition, and intellectual property as well as gender equality.

The dialogue created an open and inclusive space for debate on the substance and form of the AfCFTA. Discussions assessed the strengths and weaknesses of the AfCFTA process and put forward recommendations intended to facilitate its optimal implementation in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region and identify effective paths forward for the next phase of negotiations.

Main takeaways

• Rules of origin: it will be important to clearly and accurately define the criteria that will enable the identification of products originating from within the regional space. The meeting recommended that negotiators adopt flexible rules of origin with a view of ensuring priority access for African companies to the continental market and so that countries can develop their productive capacities and create regional and continental value chains.
• Sensitive and excluded products: consensus must be reached on sensitive products and also an explicit determination of the products excluded from the free trade area.
• Different levels of development: while embracing an ambitious agenda of regional integration, the varying socioeconomic realities, industrialisation needs, and structural deficits across countries and regions need to be taken into consideration.
• Participation: the lack of broad and inclusive consultations with all relevant stakeholders at national and regional levels has been a major deficiency that has driven legitimate concerns expressed by actors in many countries regarding the trade deal’s outcomes.
• Timelines: in some instances, accelerated negotiations and tight deadlines have not allowed for proper analyses and evaluations to be carried out in order to formulate informed and shared positions – including in relation to political economy considerations.
• Regional Economic Communities (RECs): the AfCFTA must be designed as an instrument to strengthen the achievements of the RECs. It was recommended that ECOWAS countries should preserve the integrity of the customs union, in particular by preventing members from making commitments or implementing the AfCFTA individually and/or outside of their regional obligations.
• Coherence with external commitments: Participants agreed that it was important to seize the opportunity of the AfCFTA negotiations to review a number of existing agreements between African countries and regions with their external partners, in particular the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) with the European Union, and to revise certain protocols and agreements intra-regional where necessary;

The dialogue was initiated by a group of regional and international organisations, and actors, including the African Center for Trade, Integration and Development (Enda CACID), the United Nations Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP), the Third World Network Africa (TWN Africa), the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), and the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF). The Commissions of the African Union, ECOWAS, and ECCAS, the OSIWA Foundation, and GIZ provided technical and financial support.

A full meeting report prepared by Enda Cacid is available in English and in French.

Attendance was by invitation only.