A Wrong Sound in the Quest for a Symphony? The WTO and the Impact of EU’s Common Agricultural Policy on Africa: Insight From Senegal

This paper is situated within the growing debate on how the domestic economic policies of developed countries condition that of the developing countries through the mechanism of international trade relations under the auspices of the WTO . Using the framework of the dependency theory I shall examine the economic impact of the EU Common Agricultural Policy ( CAP ) on Africa with critical attention on the agricultural sector of the former, drawing empirical evidence from the present situation in Senegal. This answered the overarching question: How does the EU CAP affect the economies of Africa in general and Senegal in particular? The empirical evidence from Senegal’s experience presented in this paper revealed that CAP negatively affects the economic growth of Africa through the suffocation of its agricultural sector as a result of its distortion of the domestic price and the inability of local farmers to produce at a price that can compete equally with the heavily subsidized imported alternatives from the EU.