The Africa Continental Free Trade Area policy network is calling for reforms in the Protocol on Women and Youth in Trade. Although the Continental framework aims at creating a market of 1.5 billion people many African women who trade in the informal sector risk losing out on the preferential trade agreement. However as stakeholders prepare for the Biashara Africa Summit in Rwanda, experts at the Africa Continental Free Trade Area policy network are calling for the inclusion of more women in the trade framework.
Kigali- Rwanda will be the converging point for private and government actors who will be interacting at the 2024 Africa Continental Free Trade Area Biashara Africa Summit. Under the theme dare to Invest in Africa, experts at the AFCFTA policy Network say it is time for Africa to scale up the implementation of the free trade area
This is the time for African businesses to take advantage of this networking, take advantage of this policy framework, take advantage of this moment where businesses are supposed to really integrate, exhibit their products, engage in contract signing and guarantees on the spot.
Louis Yaw Afful, Executive Director – AfCFTA policy Network
The Africa Union recently adopted a protocol on women and youth in a bid to promote participation, however the network says some reforms will be required to make the text more effective.
I was in that consultative before the protocol was adopted. I was part of a program in South Africa and we’re looking at fine tuning our concerns about the protocol. I raised a point that if you look at the protocol on women, there’s one of the final clauses, the final articles on financing. And I said that you said we should enhance or equip women financially, but the article is so vague. I said, let us enshrine it in our legislative laws that, for example, if a woman in business comes for financial assistance with a man, we are saying that you should be able to grant them about 50% more than the men. It is at that level that you are making your policies more practicable.
Louis Yaw Afful, Executive Director – AfCFTA policy Network
To ease the burden of doing croos border payment, the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System PAPSS is expected to create an efficient system for businesses to do cross border exchanges.
PAPSS provides for us the settlement and payment system that we can use in our own local currencies across the continent. And then the second one is the adjustment fund. And it is in three components. There is also a credit component whereby or MSMEs can actually get credit that they can use to expand or upgrade or upscale their businesses. So there is programs already ongoing and we got the point, we need to actually do more advocacy work and sensitization work on the AfCFTA.
Emily Njeri Mbutu-Ndoria, Director AfCFTA – Trade and Services
AfCFTA’s Biashara Africa event is scheduled to take place from the 9th to the 11th of October 2024