31 July - 1 September 2017, Online

Through the 2014 Malabo Declaration, African governments made a specific and clear commitment to boosting intra-African trade in agricultural commodities and services, and to harnessing market and trade opportunities locally, regionally, and internationally. This is increasingly regarded as a means to promote agricultural transformation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), since it can help address the key challenges to agricultural development in the region such as diverse agro-ecological systems, and small national markets.

In this context, the relationship between trade and food security is attracting increased attention on both the trade and the development agendas. The eradication of global hunger by 2030 is a key goal in the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and trade is recognized as one of the means for achieving the SDGs. The challenge is how to ensure that the expansion of agricultural trade works for and not against, the elimination of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. This challenge has been at the forefront as governments’ struggle to negotiate the changes to the current global agreements on agricultural trade that are needed to ensure that trade results in enhanced food security.

The increasing need for trade experts to support trade related development agenda in the region has posed a major challenge. In most cases, national and regional institutions do not have the technical capacity and resources to map out national, sub-regional and regional level trade priorities and constraints; to empirically assess the implications of their multiple memberships on trade, food security and nutrition; to formulate appropriate mitigation policies and strategies; or to negotiate trade agreements that boost gains from trade and specialization.

This course therefore seeks to strengthen capacities in the Eastern and Southern Africa region, to develop and implement evidence-based trade policies, and to formulate and negotiate trade agreements, taking into consideration both their needs for economic growth and structural transformation, as well as their food security and nutrition concerns. The course provided 4 units as below:

Unit 1: Introduction to Trade, Food Security and Nutrition

 Lesson 1.1: Definitions and Linkages between Trade, Food Security and Nutrition
 Lesson 1.2: Impacts of Trade on Food Security and Nutrition

Unit 2: Trade Policy Supportive of Food Security

 Lesson 2.1: Trade Policy Measures and Agricultural Development
 Lesson 2.2: Design and Implementation of Trade Policy Measures

Unit 3: Governance of Trade, Food Security and Nutrition 

 Lesson 3.1: Introduction to the Multilateral Trading System
 Lesson 3.2: Policy Space for Food Security in the Multilateral Trading System
 Lesson 3.3: Towards Improved Governance for Trade, Food Security and Nutrition 

Unit 4: Trade, Food Security and Nutrition in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA)