Quotas, AoA, intellectual property, SPS Agreement, tariffication, blue, amber or green box… These and many other ex- pressions and acronyms describe today’s trade rules, procedures, disciplines and laws. To this already complex terminology, one must add the specific jargon of the sectors of traded goods (agriculture, stock farming, forestry, fishery, etc.), the geographic dimension, law, theory, and finally practice. This generates many obstacles to good understanding of the stakes and consequences of agricultural policy choices in sub-Saharan African countries.

A product of the Conseil des organisations non gouvernementales d’appui au développement (CONGAD), a Senegalese association, the purpose of this publication is to provide basic elements to understand how international trade institutions and agreements operate. Organised around descriptive and factual texts, this work contains many definitions and is illustrated by concrete experiences. Its aim is to provide those in charge of civil society organisations in sub-Saharan Africa with tools and references to better understand the stakes behind, and means for, their participation in international trade.

Searching for instruments to mobilise and support actors’ understanding of this important subject, CONGAD contacted GRET in early 2006 to produce pedagogical factsheets on Africa and the WTO. Two years later, thanks to the support of the CTA, the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fishing, this publication has finally been born. The result of a collective writing process, it involved citizens of more than eleven African nations (Kenya, Uganda, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mali, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Madagascar), twelve African civil society associations (CONGAD, CERAPE, ACORD, SEATINI, FONGS, SPONG, the Forum social sénégalais, FECONG, CNCR, the National Platform of Nigerien NGOs, the Union maraîchère de Niayes, the Forum of Guinean NGOs), nine authors, fifteen pilot readers, and five caricaturists.

We are proud to have been part of this collective work in which the commitment and vitality of its participants confirm the importance that African civil society grants to international agricultural trade issues.

Bénédicte Hermelin