PERSPECTIVE Lost in a Spaghetti Bowl? Mega-regional trade agreements, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Future of the WTO Eveline Herfkens March 2016 n Mega-regional trade agreements such as TPP and TTIP pose a threat to the multi­lateral trading system both by discriminating against all those countries that are not part of these agreements and by replacing multilateral functions and activities with regional ones. They sap the energy of the multilateral negotiations within the WTO. It is only in this multilateral forum that smaller and poorer countries have a voice and that their concerns can be addressed effectively. n Moreover, mega-regionals, and TTIP in particular, are potentially damaging to ex­ports from low-income countries, in particular from Africa. It is important to focus on the urgent needs of sub-Saharan Africa now as an integral part of TTIP nego­tiations, for example, by using TTIP to harmonize the unilateral trade preference schemes of the U.S. and the EU, making their respective rules of origin for products imported from Africa transparent and simple, and by extending mutual recognition of standards to products from low-income countries. n Harmonizing preferential treatment schemes for Africa may also provide a useful ba­sis for harmonizing and rationalizing special and differential treatment of developing countries more broadly. Action by the U.S. and the EU to improve market access for at least sub-Saharan Africa might alleviate the impression left at the WTO Ministerial Conference in Nairobi that they are indifferent to developing country concerns. Such a confidence-building measure might contribute to reviving multilateral negotiations in the WTO.