AGRODEP recently played a leading role in the 17th Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis, held from June 18-20 in Dakar, Senegal. The event brought together 194 economists from 52 countries to discuss issues of food policy, trade, and economic vulnerability, with a particular focus on Africa. Twenty AGRODEP members received sponsorship to attend the conference and present their work during three days of parallel sessions, which supported the conference organizers’ major goal of strong representation from African scholars. “From the beginning, we recognized the importance of connecting African researchers to this credible, high-quality international research network,” said Antoine Bouet of MTID. Fifty participants came from across Africa, and forty of them received scholarships to attend from UNECA, WTO, AGRODEP, and IFPRI’s Food Security Portal.
“The conference was truly a big moment for AGRODEP and a clear demonstration of GTAP's commitment to partnership with the African scientific community,” Badiane commented. “We will work hard to maintain a similar level of participation in the future."
Plenary speakers included Njuguna Ndung’u, Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya and Ousmane Badiane, IFPRI’s Director for Africa. Researchers from IFPRI’s Markets, Trade and Institutions Division presented an organized session on food security and international trade, and IFPRI was further represented by presenters from the Development, Strategy and Governance Division, as well as from the West and Central Africa Office.
The conference has been very well received by all of the participants. AGRODEP member Joshua Ajetomobi of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology in Nigeria, said:
"I am very grateful to AGRODEP for the opportunity to attend the last GTAP conference in Senegal. It's my first major lesson on the real world application of various shades of CGE models.
GTAP is a global network of researchers and policymakers who conduct quantitative analysis of international policy issues. This year’s conference was sponsored and supported by the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM), IFPRI’s Food Security Portal, UNECA, the World Bank, and the WTO.
AGRODEP also held two CGE training courses in tandem with the conference in order to encourage and increase AGRODEP attendance. The first section of the course, “Advanced CGE Modeling: PEP and IFPRI Models”, was held on June 16-17 and provided an in-depth look at two static, single-country general equilibrium models: the IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute) standard model and the PEP (Partnership for Economic Policy) 1-1 model. The second session, “Advanced CGE Modeling: Models of Regional Trade Integration”, was held on June 22 and was co-sponsored by the World Bank. This session focused on innovative CGE software developed by the World Bank for the analysis of trade policy modeling in East Africa, as well as on new datasets on trade costs and their assessment in CGE models. A total of 15 AGRODEP members attended one or both of the courses.