Africa: EU trade policy and conflict in Africa

The EU needs to confront the structural ways in which its trade policy can inadvertently promote instability. In particular, EU trade policy could do a great deal more to encourage growth and equality in the developing world, to help countries move away from reliance on volatile commodity revenues, to mitigate the adjustment costs of liberalisation, enable developing countries to support sensitive domestic industries, add value to their products, and to push the world trade agenda towards more conflict sensitive policies. This is according to a paper by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) that investigates the impacts of EU trade policy on violent conflict in the developing world.