Under the regime of the World Trade Organization, local and regional policies are increasingly determined by global factors. One example is the New Partnership for Africa's Development. It stresses an earlier notion of African Renaissance, which includes the emphasis on collective self-reliance, but at the same time seeks closer cooperation with the global trade system and its international agencies. Bi- and multilateral trade relations between external actors and individual African states or regional blocs are becoming ever more decisive. This is also true of the more recently negotiated Economic Partnership Agreements in the post-Lome era of EU-African relations. In light of such trends the question of coherence between "trade as aid" and other areas of development strategy and cooperation remains to be answered.