The African strategy for trade development and its implications for trade promotion and technical co-operation

Abstract

The strategy of self-sustaining development and collective self-reliance calls for a reversal of priorities and, a gradual break with the system of quasi-imperial preferences that have to date linked African countries with the former colonizing metropolises,, The order of priorities required under the Lagos Plan of Action is based on the setting of economic growth on an indigenous footing and the fastening of internal development factors in national, sub regional and regional structures, Africa's external relations should contribute to the development of the continent and not to the transmission of economic growth to development poles outside Africa, The order in which the Lagos Plan of Action considers international trade and financial questions is therefore not fortuitous* It follows the precise logic of an endogenous development strategy