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Abstract
Uganda has had formal trade ties with Europe since 1973 when, together with several other
commonwealth countries, it signed the Lomé Convention. However, trade relations between
Europe and Africa started much earlier, in 1957, at first covering 18 francophone countries and
six European countries. The Lomé Conventions granted countries like Uganda non-reciprocal
trade preferences with the European Community (EC) and later European Union (EU)...Uganda’s current and potential exports to the EU include traditionally sensitive agricultural
products such as: maize, sugar, coffee, cotton, bananas, milk and dairy products, animal
products, fruit and vegetable products, and oil seed products. The risks from the EPAs can be
summarized into three categories. First, that the country will lose its competitive and/or
comparative advantages because it cannot match the competitiveness of European producers
and/or the EU and national support offered to European producers. Second, compared to many
countries in the region, Uganda has already endured many years of political and economic
turmoil. The country has had less than two decades of economic stability and may not be ready
to be exposed to competition with much more resilient economies. Third, Uganda’s economy is
natural-resource based. For example, biodiversity services contributed about US$1 billion to the
national economy in 1999. Thus, before liberalizing the trade opportunity with the EU there is a
need to reflect on the consequences to the country’s sustainable development. For this study,
the consequences to sustainable development are described in light of the country’s
commitments to biodiversity conservation as well as the subsequent impacts on livelihoods of
the poor who have a high dependence on the country’s biodiversity resources...