Trade can play a crucial role in thedevelopment of services sectors in Africa. Services offernew dynamic opportunities for exports, especially forland-locked countries, while opening up to imports ofservices and foreign direct investment is a key mechanism toincrease competition and drive greater efficiency in theprovision of services in the domestic economy. Lower prices,higher quality and wider access to services raisesproductivity improves competitiveness and is critical forpoverty reduction. But trade opening may need to becoordinated with regulatory reforms, to ensure efficientoutcomes, while additional policies may be required toensure that public policy objectives regarding equity areachieved. This places emphasis on the capacity to define andimplement sound regulatory policies for services sectors,capacity that is limited in many African countries.Regulatory and trade reforms in Africa need to be supportedwith technical and financial assistance. Such assistanceshould be available to all African countries that wish toreform their services sectors, whether they negotiate andsign an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) or not. Anindependently managed fund for services trade reform inAfrica, organized around common priority sectors, that wouldallocate resources to support implementation of reforms andconsultants according to expertise, not nationality, will bethe most appropriate vehicle for providing technicalassistance and building capacity.
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