Secretariat to hold trade policy workshop for MPs from Southern Africa

Members of Parliament (MPs) from Commonwealth Southern African countries will meet in Livingstone, Zambia, from 3 to 4 May 2011 for a capacity-building workshop to deepen their understanding of trade policy issues. A further meeting will take place on 5 May, which will focus on how gender can be mainstreamed into trade policy.

The workshop, organised by the International Trade and Regional Co-operation Section of the Commonwealth Secretariat, is the third in a series of regional workshops on trade policy for parliamentarians. The workshops acknowledge the indentified need to increase comprehensive oversight of trade policy formulation and implementation among developing Commonwealth member countries.

It is critical that MPs have a greater understanding of the rules and regulations which govern international trade.

Edwin Laurent, the head of International Trade and Regional Co-operation at the Secretariat, said that every nation has some form of trade policy in place, with public officials usually taking the lead to formulate the policy that they think would be most appropriate for their country - and MPs are key to achieving this.

“The purpose of trade policy is to help a nation’s international trade - and most Commonwealth countries in Southern Africa depend on international trade as a means of gaining foreign exchange, creating jobs and reducing poverty. It is therefore important that MPs who are the vanguards of a country’s legislative responsibility understand the context, concepts and dynamics that underlie trade policy,” Mr Laurent explained.

He said that MPs, as representatives of citizens in their countries, should be able to engage in discussions about trade policies armed with a clear and deep understanding of the implications these would have on their people, since it is ultimately the people that do the actual trading in goods and services.

Legislators from Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zambia are expected to participate in the workshop.

During the workshop, a manual on trade policy developed by the Secretariat with specific reference to key issues relevant to the Southern Africa region will also be launched.

Similar workshops have been organised for MPs in the Caribbean, East Africa and Pacific regions.

Representatives from regional and international trade and development organisations, such as UNCTAD and the African Development Bank, will also be present.