DIRCO Economic Diplomacy
Economic Diplomacy
Economic diplomacy is concerned with setting the ‘rules of the game’ for the conduct of economic policy. Effective economic diplomacy requires understanding both the domestic political economy environment and the external negotiating environment, and the constraints of each.
Economic diplomacy matters to Southern Africa because the rules of the game shape domestic economic policy in important ways, and in an increasingly multi-polar world international economic negotiations are growing in importance across a number of fronts. These may shape domestic and regional economic policies in ways that could be inimical to pursuing sustainable outcomes.
Therefore it is necessary to ensure regional interests are articulated and understood.
SAIIA’s primary purpose is to assist with the articulation of such interests by conducting high-level analytical work and making it publicly available in digestible forms to key Southern African actors and their international counterparts.
The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) outlined the objectives and work of the Diplomatic Academy in providing Economic Diplomacy (ED) training to South African mission staff.
The Economic Diplomacy Strategic Framework was guided by government policies and programmes, and essentially provided a conceptual framework and tools for the training that would translate domestic policy into foreign policy.
This training had been designed by DIRCO and the Department of Trade and Industry (dti) and included clarification on the roles between various spheres and agencies of government, exposed the diplomatic missions to South African economic interests, and allowed for a study of provincial offices’ commercial strengths and priorities and different sectors.