David Luke is professor in practice and strategic director at the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa and Extraordinary Professor at North-West University in South Africa. Specialising in African trade policy and trade negotiations, Professor Luke has decades of experience in policy advisory services, managing and catalysing research, building partnerships, training and capacity development for private sector and government. This experience stems from an extensive career spanning a tenured appointment at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, and assignments at the African Union, the UN Development Programme and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) with postings in Harare, Pretoria, Geneva, and Addis Ababa. At ECA’s African Trade Policy Centre, Professor Luke and his team were instrumental in the preparation of the protocols that make up the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement. His PhD in African Political Economy is from the School of Oriental and African Studies and his MSc. and BSc. are from the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of trade in development; trade and inclusion; and trade and sustainability. He is a member of the board of TradeMark Africa.
Selected Work:
-How Africa-Europe Trade Arrangements Can Harmonize, Not Collide. David Luke Chapter 5 in David McNair ed., Why Europe Needs Africa (Carnegie Endowment, 2024).
-Unfinished Business on Voluntary Carbon Markets – A New Frontier for Trade Cooperation. David Luke and Cecilia Wandiga in Reviving Multilateralism – From Vision to Action on Trade and Sustainability at the WTO (Forum on Trade, Environment and the SDGs, 2024).
- Navigating climate action: Assessing the economic impacts and trade-offs of a shipping carbon tax for African states. Maria Ogbugo, David Luke, Faten Aggad, Oluwasola Omoju, William Davis. (October, 2024).
-Implications for African Countries of a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism in the EU. Joint publication of the African Climate Foundation and the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa at the LSE. (May 2023).
- Muddled policies continue to plague EU-Africa trade policy. David Luke. (May 2023).
- Why African countries struggle to exercise agency at the WTO. David Luke and Colette Van der Ven. (May 2023).