Africa: Why trade liberalisation is not working for Africa

This report from UNCTAD examines Africa’s export performance after trade liberalisation to draw lessons for use in the design of future development strategies. Liberalisation over the last 25 years has removed policy barriers that were seen to inhibit export performance. Despite this the level and composition of exports has not changed. Exports have not diversified and as a whole market share is down from 6 per cent of world exports to 3 per cent.