Embedded Files
Helpful prior knowledge and learning objectives
Helpful prior knowledge and learning objectives
Helpful prior learning:
Section 1.1.1 The economy and you, which explains what an economy is and how it is relevant to students’ lives
Section 1.1.2 The embedded economy, which explains the relationship between the economy and society and Earth’s systems
Section 1.1.4 Regenerative economies, which explains how circular, distributive and caring, needs-based and sufficient economies can meet human needs within planetary boundaries
Section 5.1.3 State functions, which explains the various roles of the state in providing goods and services, protecting the population, and stabilising and guiding change
Section 5.1.6 State narratives: Entrepreneurial state, which describes the role of the state in supporting innovation and mission-oriented sectoral transformation
Section 7.1.1 Global exchange as a system, which describes global exchange as a system with parts, relationships, functions and emergence
Section 7.1.2 History of global exchanges, which describes how global exchange systems have evolved over time, shaped by changes in technology, power, and environmental factors
Section 7.1.3 What moves across borders? which describes what flows across borders and explains how visible global flows are linked to less visible social and ecological effects
Section 7.2.1 Why do countries trade and restrict trade? which describes different forms of protectionism and explains arguments for and against freer trade
Section 7.2.5 Who writes the rules of global exchange? which explain who shapes the rules of global exchange and how various sources of power influence which rules are written and whose interests they reflect
Section 7.3.1 Unequal global value exchange, which explains how unequal prices and unequal wages systematically transfer value from periphery countries to core countries
Section S.1 What are systems?, which explains what a system is, the importance of systems boundaries, the difference between open and closed systems, and the importance of systems thinking
Section S.2 Systems thinking patterns, which outlines the core components of systems thinking: distinctions (thing/other), systems (part/whole), relationships (action/reaction), and perspectives (point/view)
Section S.4 Stocks and flows, which explains how inflows and outflows affect stocks of things, leading to behaviour-over-time patterns
Learning objectives:
explain why industrial policy has been central to the development of wealthy economies and why Global South countries face structural barriers to using the same tools
compare at least two Global South-led alternatives to trade liberalisation and assess what each contributes to the challenge of structural economic transformation
Until the 1980s, Ghanaian farmers supplied much of the rice Ghanaians ate. By the early 2000s, imports, much from the United States, accounted for most of the rice sold in Ghana's markets. Locally grown rice lost much of its market share, and many farming households that had depended on it lost their main source of income and gave up rice growing.
The reasons lie in policy changes of the early 1980s when Ghana faced serious economic difficulties and borrowed money from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). As a condition of those loans, Ghana had to remove its tariffs on imports, a form of trade liberalisation (Section 7.2.1 and Section 7.2.5). Tariffs are taxes on imported goods that make them more expensive to buy, giving local producers a chance to compete. Without tariffs, cheap foreign rice could enter freely. The imported rice was inexpensive because the US government paid large subsidies to US rice farmers, covering part of their production costs. This allowed American exporters to sell rice abroad at prices lower than it cost to grow. Ghanaian farmers could not compete.
Figure 1. A rice field in the Asante region of Ghana.
(Credit: Africa Rice, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Many local producers in the Global South have had the same experience. This section examines what went wrong with trade liberalisation as a development strategy and what trade strategies Global South countries and regions are trying to build as an alternative.
What problems are new trade arrangements trying to address?
What problems are new trade arrangements trying to address?
Trade liberalisation rests on the idea that removing trade barriers lets competitive industries grow. Global South countries have faced three problems with this idea in practice. First, they were not able to protect and support new industries. Second, many of them have markets that are too small for large-scale production. Third, their roads, railways, and power grids were built to carry raw materials to ports rather than to connect neighbouring countries to diversify trade. Many Global South countries are now looking for new trade arrangements that deal with these problems.
Supporting new industries
Supporting new industries
Today's high-income countries did not remove their trade barriers while they were developing. Britain, the US, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and more recently China all protected new industries, often called infant industries, using tools such as tariffs and subsidies. Trade barriers like these give new industries time to grow and mature before they have to compete with more established foreign firms. This is part of a wider approach called industrial policy, where the state actively supports economic development. These countries opened their markets more fully only once their industries were stronger.
Global South countries were pushed in the other direction. From the 1980s, IMF and World Bank programmes, and later World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, encouraged them to lower tariffs and other trade barriers (Section 7.3.10). In recent years, the World Bank has recognised that states can play an important role in guiding investment and supporting local economic development. However, many trade agreements limit tools such as subsidies and rules that benefit local producers. Such rules reduce a state’s policy space, which is its freedom to choose the policies it thinks will best build its economy. Countries want trade agreements that give them more policy freedom.
Regional cooperation
Regional cooperation
The second problem is size. Many Global South countries have small domestic markets, so their producers may not be able to achieve economies of scale (Section 3.2.4). Economies of scale occur when producing more lowers the cost of producing each unit. Regional trade and investment agreements among Global South countries, a form of South-South cooperation, can help firms reach the scale they need to compete.
European states took this approach with their aerospace industry. They pooled money, skills, and workers, and their governments promised to buy the aircraft. The result was Airbus, the main competitor to the US aerospace firm Boeing. Airbus also shows industrial policy at work, because it relied on state support. No single European country could have built it alone, and South-South cooperation can be essential for the same reason.
Regional infrastructure
Regional infrastructure
The third problem is infrastructure. Regional cooperation works better when roads, railways, and energy grids make exchange easier. In many Global South countries, especially in Africa, these transportation and energy networks were built during the colonial period to carry raw materials to ports. They rarely link neighbouring economies to each other, which can limit South-South cooperation and exchange. Strengthening trade links within a region often means building new infrastructure. This is costly and takes many years.
What alternatives are Global South countries building?
What alternatives are Global South countries building?
South-South trade agreements attempt to address the problems outlined in the previous section. Most of the countries involved in these new trade arrangements are also World Trade Organization (WTO) members. WTO agreements normally require a country to give every trading partner the same trade relationships as the ‘most favoured nation’ it trades with. Regional trade agreements are one of the few exceptions to this rule. Countries can offer each other better terms than they offer everyone else, provided they form a recognised free trade area or customs union (Section 7.2.3). This is one reason regional and wider South-South trade cooperation has become a common route for countries seeking to build economic ties within a region, and protect developing industries from competition with already-industrialised economies outside it.
Each of the regional trade agreements below (AfCFTA, ASEAN, Mercosur) also shares two features. Rules of origin require that goods contain a certain proportion of regional content to qualify for lower tariffs within the trading bloc. Without this rule, goods could pass through the trading bloc with only minimal processing and still qualify for the lower tariffs. Rules of origin close this loophole and give producers a real incentive to build manufacturing and processing capacity within the region. A second feature these agreements share is that each one allows more trade protection for sensitive sectors like agriculture or infant industries. This supports state industrial policies for economic transitions.
Three examples of South-South trade agreements
AfCFTA
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was established in 2021. All African Union member states have signed the agreement except Eritrea, though a handful of signatories have not yet ratified it. AfCFTA is a free trade area, so each member still sets its own trade barriers with non-members. It permits members to keep tariffs on agriculture and early-stage industries while they build capacity, and requires goods to contain a set proportion of African-made content to qualify for the bloc's lower tariffs.
Figure 2. Map of AfCFTA members and AfCFTA logo. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 and fair use)
ASEAN
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a free trade area founded in 1967, bringing together eleven countries in Southeast Asia, with Timor-Leste joining most recently in 2025. Like AfCFTA, ASEAN allows continued protection for sensitive sectors, mainly agriculture, letting members phase in trade liberalisation at different speeds. This flexibility has allowed countries with very different economic conditions to take part.
Figure 3. ASEAN members and flag. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Mercosur
Mercosur is a trading bloc in South America founded in 1991, whose founding members are Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. Bolivia became a full member in 2024. Unlike AfCFTA and ASEAN, Mercosur is a customs union. Its members charge the same tariffs on imports from outside the bloc, and they negotiate trade agreements with other countries together. A few goods are treated differently. For cars and sugar, members follow separate rules with external countries, because these industries are important to some member governments.
Figure 4. Map of Mercosur member countries and the Mercosur logo. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
GSTP
The Global System of Trade Preferences (GSTP) works differently from the regional agreements above because it links Global South countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It is run by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). It now has 42 participants, including Mercosur as a bloc, together representing an 18 trillion US dollar market. Members cut tariffs on trade with each other, though less fully than within a free trade area. GSTP shows that Global South cooperation can also cross regions, not only build within them.
Figure 5. UN Trade and Development explainer on GSTP.
(Credit: UNCTAD)
Positive impacts and continuing limitations
Positive impacts and continuing limitations
Intra-African trade, which is trade between African countries, reached around 208 to 220 billion US dollars in 2024. Some of this trade is in processed goods, such as manufactured goods and textiles, instead of raw materials. Manufactured goods usually sell for higher prices and create more jobs than raw materials. Selling them helps countries earn more from what they produce.
However, trade within each region is still a small share of its total trade. Intra-African trade is 15 to 18% of Africa's total trade. Intra-ASEAN trade fell from 24% of ASEAN's total trade in 2010 to around 20% in 2024. Intra-Mercosur trade is around 10 to 15% of Mercosur's total trade, below its level in the mid-1990s. Trade within the GSTP varies widely between its 42 members, from around 5% to over 50% of their exports. In contrast, trade between European Union member states makes up roughly 60% of the total. But the EU is a common market, so its members are more closely integrated than the members of these other trade agreements.
Why the limitations persist
Why the limitations persist
Path dependency and unfinished infrastructure are two important reasons why regional trade stays low.
Path dependency means that decisions made in the past limit the choices available later. Many African and South American countries have long exported primary commodities. Southeast Asian economies make many similar mass-produced goods. These countries sell most of their exports to buyers outside the region, mainly in the Global North and China. Decades of investment in infrastructure, skills, and supply chains have built up around these links. If countries in the same region sell similar products, they compete for the same buyers, and have little to sell to each other. Changing this takes money and time.
The second reason is infrastructure. Regional trade needs roads, railways, ports, and power grids that connect countries across borders. Each region has a programme to build them. In Africa, the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) has run since 2012 and covers transport, energy, water, and digital connectivity across the continent. In Southeast Asia, the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity, launched in 2010, covers transport, energy, and digital links between ASEAN member states. In South America, the Initiative for the Integration of South American Infrastructure (IIRSA) began in 2000 to plan transport, energy, and communications projects across the continent. Building cross-border infrastructure takes many years.
Regional trade agreements are starting to change what some countries trade, for example through more trade in manufactured and processed goods. Path dependency and unfinished infrastructure help explain why trade between neighbouring countries is still a small share of their total trade. For more on the benefits and drawbacks of economic integration, see Section 7.2.3.
ALBA and solidarity trade
ALBA and solidarity trade
In 2004, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Cuban President Fidel Castro founded the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). Its organising principle was solidarity. Countries would exchange goods and services based on what each needed and could offer, at prices they agreed between themselves. Cuba contributed doctors, teachers, and medical expertise. Venezuela used its oil revenue to finance shared programmes and supply subsidised oil. By the early 2010s, ALBA had grown to include around eleven member states across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Figure 6. The logo for the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, known as ALBA.
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons, formerly from the ALBA homepage)
Healthcare gave ALBA a different character from the trade agreements described above. Cuban doctors ran large medical missions across the region, funded mainly by Venezuelan oil revenue. Millions of people received free treatment they could not otherwise have afforded. This kind of cooperation runs on shared resources for a shared social need, different from the market-access questions that shape the trade agreements above. Cuba's medical cooperation continues today through agreements with individual countries (Section 7.4.5).
Because Venezuela provided much of ALBA's funding, it also became the alliance's most influential member. Venezuela's economy entered a crisis during the 2010s, and the resources available for ALBA declined sharply. This was aggravated by US sanctions on the state oil company PDVSA in 2019, which further restricted Venezuela's oil exports and access to international finance, reducing the scale of many ALBA programmes. ALBA showed that solidarity-based exchange can deliver real benefits. It also showed how fragile such arrangements are when they depend on one country's resources.
As of 2026, ALBA's future is uncertain. Bolivia was suspended from ALBA in October 2025 after electing a government the alliance considered a break from its founding principles. Venezuela's government changed after US military action in January 2026. Cuba faces a deepening crisis of its own, sharpened by new US threats to sanction any country that trades oil with it. What all this means for ALBA's programmes, including Cuba's medical missions, is clear at the time of writing this text.
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Decades of trade liberalisation limited how much control Global South countries had over their own economic development. Each of these trade alternatives is an attempt to reclaim some of that control.
Activity 7.4.4
Activity 7.4.4
Concept: Systems, power, regeneration
Skills: Thinking skills (critical thinking, transfer)
Time: 30 minutes
Type: Individual, pairs, or small group
Option 1: Comparing three approaches
This section describes three broad kinds of Global South-led alternative: regional trade agreements (AfCFTA, ASEAN, and Mercosur), an interregional agreement (GSTP), and a solidarity-based alliance (ALBA). Fill in the table below using what you have read in this section.
Table 1. Comparing Global South-led alternatives.
Questions to consider:
All three approaches are attempts to reclaim some of the control that decades of trade liberalisation took away from Global South countries. In your own words, explain how each approach tries to do this.
GSTP and the regional trade agreements both cut trade barriers between members, but they are organised very differently. What is the main difference?
ALBA works differently from the other two strategies. What makes it different, and what does this difference make possible that standard trade agreements do not?
Which of these three approaches, if any, do you think has the best chance of disrupting the unequal patterns of global exchange described earlier in this subtopic? Give a reason for your answer.
Click on the arrow to reveal sample responses, but give it a go yourself first!
All three try to give Global South countries more say over their own economic development, rather than accepting rules set mainly by other countries or global institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO). The regional trade agreements do this by making space for member countries’ own industrial policies. GSTP does it by linking Global South countries across regions, so cooperation is not limited to neighbours. ALBA did it by replacing market prices with exchange based on need and solidarity.
The regional trade agreements are built around geography where countries in the same region reduce trade barriers with each other, with separate arrangements to work on redirecting infrastructure to make trade between them easier. GSTP is not regional; it links 42 countries across three continents through one shared agreement, showing that Global South cooperation does not have to be built between neighbours.
ALBA was based on solidarity where countries exchanged what they had, such as doctors or oil, based on need rather than transactional market exchanges. This made a different kind of cooperation possible, such as large-scale healthcare programmes funded and delivered as a shared social project.
Some students may argue that the regional trade agreements have the strongest chance, since AfCFTA already shows a real shift toward processed goods rather than raw materials, which directly challenges the pattern of Global South countries exporting raw materials and importing finished goods. Others may argue GSTP has more disruptive potential in principle, since it connects Global South countries across regions rather than only within them, but its limited use so far, and the São Paulo Round's stalled ratification, suggest this potential has not yet been realised. Others may argue that ALBA showed the clearest break from market-based exchange altogether, since it replaced prices with need, but its dependence on one country's oil wealth made it fragile and vulnerable to external pressure. Strong answers will note that all three approaches remain small compared to the scale of existing global trade patterns, so even the most promising among them has only partly disrupted the wider system.
Option 2: Case study of Tunisia's olive oil and the limits of market access
Time: 30-40 minutes
Read the following case study based on this article and answer the questions that follow:
Walk into a supermarket in Paris, Berlin, or New York and you will see that most olive oils carry Italian or Spanish labels. Very few carry Tunisian ones. This is surprising, because Tunisia is one of the world's largest olive oil producers. In the 2025–26 season, analysts expected its olive groves to yield between 380,000 and 400,000 tonnes of oil, placing it second globally behind only Spain.
Figure 7. Tunisia is a major olive oil exporter
(Credit: Mahmoud Yahyaoui, Pexels license)
Tunisia exports most of its olive oil in bulk to Europe, where companies blend it with oil from other origins, bottle it, and sell it under established European brand names. Italy is the largest buyer, importing large volumes to offset its own production shortfalls and then re-exporting the blended oil under European labels. The value that reaches Tunisia comes from selling the raw oil. The larger share of the end price, generated by bottling, branding, distribution contracts, and supermarket shelf space, stays in Europe.
Tunisia's access to the European market is also capped by a quota system. Under the EU-Tunisia trade framework, Tunisia can export up to 56,700 tonnes of olive oil per year without paying import tariffs. Tariffs are taxes on imported goods that make them more expensive for buyers. Beyond the quota, tariffs apply. The quota has been fully used for nine consecutive years. This shows that Tunisian oil is price-competitive and in high demand, but the quota still limits how much Tunisia can sell.
The downstream stages of the olive oil market, bottling, branding, and retail distribution, are controlled by a small number of large European companies. These firms own the brand names that consumers recognise, hold the distribution contracts with major supermarket chains, and manage the blending of oils from multiple origins. A Tunisian producer wanting to sell bottled, branded olive oil directly to European consumers would need to build or buy bottling capacity, register a brand, negotiate distribution contracts, and compete for shelf space against firms that have held those relationships for decades. Each of these steps requires capital, time, and market access that current trade arrangements do not provide.
Economist Fadhel Kaboub identifies four directions that could shift this situation:
African olive oil producers could coordinate to build shared bottling, branding, and distribution capacity under the AfCFTA framework. They could build the scale that no single producer country could achieve alone.
Public development banks could finance the processing and logistics infrastructure needed to move into downstream production, treating this as industrial policy rather than leaving it to private investment.
Olive oil producers could also develop markets in Asia, Latin America, and within Africa itself, reducing dependence on European supermarket chains.
A coordinated bloc of Global South olive oil producers, working across regions the way GSTP does, could negotiate trade terms, branding recognition, and quality standards more effectively than individual countries acting separately.
The same patterns of production and distribution occur across other commodities such as cocoa, coffee, cotton, lithium. In each case, the producing country sits at the raw material end of the chain, and value accumulates at the processing, branding, and retail end, which is controlled by firms based in wealthy countries.
Questions to consider:
The case study mentions tariffs and quotas as part of the EU-Tunisia trade framework. Using what you learned in Section 7.2.1, explain: (a) what tariffs and quotas are, (b) why governments use them, and (c) who benefits from the EU's use of them in this case.
Tunisia exports large volumes of olive oil to Europe each year, yet Tunisian brands are almost invisible on European supermarket shelves. Using the case study, explain why this is the case.
Using what you have learned in this section and the information in the case study, explain what Tunisia and other Global South olive oil producers could do to earn more from their olive oil. Refer to at least two ideas from the section or the case study and explain how each could make a difference for producers.
Kaboub's proposals for change depend on collective action and coordination between countries. Based on what you have read in this section about other attempts at regional and interregional cooperation, what obstacles might make these proposals difficult to carry out in practice.
Click on the arrow for sample responses, but give it a go yourself first!
(a) A tariff is a tax that a government places on imported goods, making them more expensive for buyers in that country. A quota is a limit on the quantity of a good that can be imported. (b) Governments use these tools to protect domestic producers from foreign competition, to support industries they consider strategically important, or to manage trade relationships with other countries. In the EU-Tunisia case, the EU sets a quota of 56,700 tonnes of duty-free olive oil per year from Tunisia. Beyond that limit, tariffs apply. (c) This benefits European olive oil producers, particularly in Spain and Italy, by limiting the volume of cheaper Tunisian oil that can enter the market freely. It also keeps Tunisia in the role of a capped raw material supplier, even though Tunisian oil is price-competitive and the quota has been fully used for nine consecutive years.
Tunisia exports its oil in bulk rather than as a finished, branded product. European companies buy the bulk oil, blend it with oil from other origins, bottle it, and sell it under their own brand names. The stages of production that generate the most value, bottling, branding, distribution, and retail access, are controlled by European firms. Tunisian producers earn income from selling raw oil but do not capture the value created at these later stages. The EU quota system also limits how much Tunisian oil can enter Europe without tariffs, capping Tunisia's market access even when demand for its product is strong.
Strong answers will explain not just what the proposal is but why it could shift Tunisia's position in the value chain. Examples students might draw on: coordinating with other African olive oil producers to build shared bottling, branding, and distribution infrastructure, creating economies of scale that no single country could achieve alone; using public development bank finance to invest in processing capacity as industrial policy, rather than waiting for private investment; developing markets in Asia, Latin America, or within Africa to reduce dependence on European supermarket chains; or forming a wider negotiating bloc across regions, as GSTP does, to improve trade terms and branding recognition. Stronger answers will note that these proposals reinforce each other. Building processing capacity requires finance, and reaching new markets requires new trade relationships.
The section gives students several examples to draw on. AfCFTA shows that regional cooperation faces real infrastructure obstacles: colonial-era roads, railways, and payment systems were built to move raw materials to ports, not to connect African countries to each other. Building new infrastructure through programmes like PIDA has proven slow. GSTP shows that even a signed agreement can stall for a long time. A deeper round of tariff cuts, agreed in 2010, has sat one ratification short of taking effect for over fifteen years. ALBA shows that solidarity-based cooperation can be fragile when it depends heavily on one country's resources, as it did on Venezuela's oil wealth, and can be badly disrupted by internal crisis and external pressure. Strong answers will recognise that these obstacles are not only practical but also political and financial, and that building infrastructure, ratifying agreements, and sustaining solidarity all take sustained commitment over long periods.
Ideas for longer activities and projects are listed in Subtopic 7.5
Checking for understanding
Checking for understanding
Coming soon!
Further exploration
Further exploration
South-South cooperation: Solutions in solidarity for global challenges – A short explainer from UNCTAD tracing South-South cooperation from the 1955 Bandung Conference through the founding of UNCTAD and the Group of 77 in the 1960s to today, when trade between developing countries exceeds trade between developing and developed countries. It covers trade, finance, industrial cooperation, and the push for a fairer say in global economic decisions. Difficulty level: easy.
Global System of Trade Preferences – UNCTAD's overview of the GSTP, the interregional trade agreement linking 42 developing countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It covers the agreement's history since 1988, its members, and the pending São Paulo Round of tariff cuts, along with data on how much participating countries trade with each other. Difficulty level: medium.
African Continental Free Trade Area - The website of AfCFTA, with explainers and other information on the free trade area. This ca. 20 minute video also explains the free trade area. Difficulty level: medium
Why Are Some Countries Rich and Others Poor? — A 45-minute lecture by economist Ha-Joon Chang from the INET Economics for People series. Chang provides the detailed historical evidence behind the kicking away the ladder argument: how wealthy countries used industrial policy and protectionism to develop, and why advising lower-income countries not to do the same amounts to pulling up the ladder after them. Difficulty level: medium.
How Cuban doctors vital to Latin America are being squeezed out by the US — A Guardian article by Nesrine Malik examining the impact of US pressure on Cuba's medical cooperation programmes across Latin America and the Caribbean. It explains how Cuban doctors have spent decades serving communities that wealthier doctors would not, why the US is now blocking their deployment, and what the consequences are for countries that have no alternative healthcare provision. Directly relevant to the ALBA case study in this section and to the discussion of how external economic pressure dismantles solidarity-based arrangements. Difficulty level: easy.
Towards a New International Economic Order — A short talk by economist Fadhel Kaboub to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Kaboub argues that Africa's colonial economic role of supplying raw materials and hosting low-value manufacturing persists today, and that regional industrial strategies and green investment are the key to changing it. He explains why Africa's strategic minerals and future market size give it real bargaining power. Note: addressed to a policy audience; some terms may need looking up. Difficulty level: medium.
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UN Trade and Development. (2026). Global system of trade preferences. UNCTAD. https://unctad.org/topic/trade-agreements/global-system-of-trade-preferences
Terminology
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