The SADC Trade Development Project is a  three-year partnership between the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies(TIPS), created to  conduct a number of research projects on trade reform in Southern Africa.

TIPS’ partnership with AusAID falls under its ‘African Governance Facility’ programme umbrella, and  encompasses research projects around trade liberalisation, through which the project will aims to:

• Develop research infrastructure, for example by creating new databases and simple spreadsheets, templates and models;
• Formulate policy- and private sector-relevant information tools and publications to inform policy;
• Carry out various impact analyses; and
• Build capacity in the region.

A substantial portion of TIPS’ activities in this regard will be focused on developing research infrastructure from a ‘public good’ perspective.  For example, there is currently no database of SADC trade trends based on Member States’ data. TIPS aims to fill this gap and provide an online, readily accessible trade database which can be maintained and used by any interested researcher.  

Implicit in many of the activities is a commitment to identifying policy choices which are pro-poor, pro-growth, or ideally, both. This is likely to occur through a number of different channels, but specifically research will focus on sectors which are labour intensive. In addition, the development of Social Accounting Matrices for selected countries in the region will allow the organisation to focus particular attention on the links between trade and poverty.  

TIPS will further carry out a number of capacity-building activities to address the relatively low levels of analytical capacity in countries in the region.

In the short term, TIPS’ approach is heavily biased towards the development of simple, easy-to-use spreadsheet models and analytical templates which calculate key trade policy-related ratios and coefficients automatically. TIPS will also endeavour to develop the absorptive capacity of policy-makers in the region by producing accessible ‘briefs’ and annual policy reviews.

In the medium term, the organisation will contribute to regional policy analysis and strategy development primarily through impact analyses. However, the development of analytical templates and simple databases are expected to make trade policy analysis, by even relatively inexperienced policy analysts, much easier than is currently the case. In addition, as the core database of trade statistics is developed, more and more sophisticated analyses ? currently impossible because of the poor quality of regional statistics ? will become feasible. 

Components of the SADC Trade Development Project:

•  Development of an On-line Trade Database for SADC Member States to improve (policy-makers’ and researchers’) access to up-to-date and reliable (‘cleaned’) trade data. By developing tools which make the database easy to use, the impact of the scarcity of high-level, technical trade analysis skills in developing countries can be mitigated. The databases will be web-based, making access to and maintenance of the databases cost effective. For SADC countries where Internet access is not available, CD-ROMs will be produced.
•  Annual Intra-SADC Trade Performance Reviews which will highlight the intra-SADC structure and patterns of trade for SADC Member States. These ‘reference books’ will use sophisticated analytical techniques not previously applied to SADC, partly because the techniques are new and partly because SADC data has not been suitably ‘structured’ before, to improve the analytical grounding of policy analyses and new policies.
• Trade Facilitation – Development of a Regional Trade Information Service: Electronic and hardcopy Trade Information Briefs will provide policy-makers and the private sector with export intelligence regarding the potential of SADC ‘s current export ‘basket’ as well as the regions’ potential export basket of goods and services.
• Development of Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs) will provide policy-makers with a simple modelling framework for assessing the impact of various policy options on their economies and especially poverty indicators. The SAMs, which will be available electronically, will give a breakdown of the economic and financial flows within the economies of South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho.
• Impact Analyses – Service Sector Liberalisation: This project will provide detailed economic profiles of key service sectors to provide policy-makers with a clearer picture of their service sectors. The analyses will assess the likely impact of service sector liberalisation under the GATS agreement and/or bilateral agreements such as US/SACU to inform policy-makers of the potential costs and benefits of liberalising key service sectors.