Trade in manufacturing through global and regional value chains has played an especially prominent role in global economic growth in recent decades. However, Africa faces severe challenges in growing manufacturing activities in the face of China and Southeast Asia's competitive dominance of...

Outside of China, despite rapid economic growth in many low and middle income countries, there has been little progress in meeting the MDG1 target of halving the incidence of global poverty by 2014. Part of the explanation for this weak poverty-reducing performance has been the historic...