Planning and Corporate Services

Agricultural trade and market access

Agricultural trade can serve as a strong catalyst for growth and poverty reduction in ACP countries. For more than fifteen years, CTA has been increasingly working on agricultural trade and market access issues in partnership with various ACP and EU organizations at international, regional and national levels. CTA’s work has evolved from purely technical information to socio-economic issues including trade issues.

Currently, CTA’s programme on trade related issues covers the followings thematic clusters:

• International agricultural trade negotiations (Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and World Trade Organisation (WTO));
• Product diversification, value adding, market differentiation;
• National and regional agricultural trade policies and networks;
• Market access and Food safety issues (SPS);
• Agricultural marketing, Market Information System / Commodity Exchange.

For each of these sub-themes, CTA builds its activities around three main pillars:

• Information and analysis provision;
• Dialogue facilitation and experience sharing;
• Capacity building.

International agricultural trade negotiations (EPAs and WTO)

The Doha round and EPA negotiations continue to be at the heart of ACP trade agenda. Since 2002, CTA has invested considerable resources in monitoring the trade negotiations and analyzing their implications in terms of challenges for the ACP agricultural sector. Its Agritrade portal is now recognized by many ACP and EU stakeholders as a main information source on these issues with more than 3,000 subscribers to its monthly news update.

Product diversification, value adding, market differentiation

Given the long-term declining price of commodities and the continuous erosion of preferences due to multilateral trade liberalisation and the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy ( CAP ) reform, a critical challenge is for commodity-dependent ACP countries to move away from trading raw commodities to marketing high-value/differentiated/niche products. CTA continues to provide information and advice aimed at helping (agricultural) commodity-dependent ACP countries. The strategies include finding more effective ways of enabling SMEs to improve their access to raw materials, packaging, new technologies and national, regional and international markets. CTA also deals with information relating to food processing and other post-harvest technologies.

National and regional agricultural trade policies and networks

Coherence between national and regional agricultural policies is a key issue for regional integration. Exchange of Information and experience among ACP stakeholders involved in the formulation of agricultural and trade policies constitute one of the main objectives of the ACP policy networks supported by CTA .  

Market access and Food safety issues (SPS)

A major trade challenge for ACP countries in terms of market access is their capacity to deal with non tariff barriers and especially sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) issues. It is of utmost importance for ACP countries to continue to receive assistance on these issues especially in light of the new EU food-and-feed control regulation.

Agricultural marketing, market information system (MIS) and commodity exchange

Linking farmers to markets is probably one of the main challenges for developing countries. CTA has always been involved in supporting the establishment of MIS in ACP countries especially at local and national levels. In December 2005, CTA organised an expert consultation on MIS and agricultural commodity exchanges in Amsterdam which confirmed the necessity for CTA to continue its support to activities / projects in this field.

ICT Observatory

ICTs are one of CTA 's cross-cutting issues. The ICT Observatory was created in 1998 to study and monitor suitable technologies for use in information and communication management (ICM). Sponsored by CTA, participation in the Observatory is generally by invitation only.

Reports of meetings are available in the E-Catalogue and/or on Anancy.

The main objectives of the Observatories are to:

• identify key ICT issues and strategies relevant to ACP agricultural and rural development;
• improve the pool of knowledge and expertise available in this area;
• identify projects and expertise that could assist in defining strategies;
• provide a mechanism for monitoring technical developments which could benefit stakeholders in ACP agricultural and rural development.

Observatory meetings have been held annually since 1999. Topics have included:

• ' Wireless: a helpline for agricultural development?' (2001).
• 'Gender and agriculture in the information society' (2002).
• 'ICTs - transforming agricultural extension?' ( 2003)
• ‘The role of ICTs in improving the livelihoods of rural youth in ACP countries’ (2004).
• 'ICTs for natural resources management' (2005).
• ' Web2forDev – Participatory Web for Development' (2007)

Needs assessment

The following needs assessment reports are available on Anancy:

Monitoring and evaluation

The following publications are available on Anancy :

• Evaluating Information: A Letter to a Project Manager;
• SMART Toolkit for evaluating information products and services;
• Perceptions and Practice – An Anthology of Impact Assessment Experience.

A summary report of the 2006 User Survey of CTA’s Web Portals is available in the CTA Annual Report 2006.

Tips & tricks

In 2006 CTA reoriented its internal seminars in favour of practical sessions to equip Centre staff and partners with a set of tools to enable them to increase their efficiency. The “Tips and Tricks” programme has enabled staff to deepen their knowledge of the functionality and facilities of a number of office software applications. The Tips and Tricks sessions informed staff of basic aspects of computer and network security and working habits – do’s and don’ts – that will ensure that the Centre’s computer systems continue to operate smoothly and efficiently.