The Chronicle
Business Correspondent
WOMEN and youth-led businesses would benefit immensely from an intense three-day capacity building ‘Masterclass Business Forum on Investment and Export Readiness’ this week, which will enhance their participation under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
Running from 13-15 April 2023 in Cape Town, South Africa, the in-person masterclass programme is being jointly organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the International Trade Centre (ITC) in collaboration with the Organization of Women in International Trade (OWIT), the AfCFTA Secretariat, the African Women and Youth Empowerment Group (AWYEG), and the Commercial Law Development Programme (CLDP).
“The Masterclass series is set to provide women, and youth owned-and led businesses with the information they need to take advantage of the new intra-regional opportunities provided by the free trade area,” said the organisers in a joint media update.
“The three-day masterclass series will guide business owners to attract tailored finance and investment, as well as establish business linkages to meet
the scale and standard of the continental market.”
The programme is expected to support more women and youths to effectively grow their businesses through boosting export and investment readiness while
leveraging the opportunities of the AfCFTA.
According to the organisers, the masterclass will build on existing capacity building initiatives of UNECA and the ITC, including ITC’s training for women entrepreneurs on how to identify and access AfCFTA market opportunities through its dedicated ‘SheTrades AfCFTA project’ and “How to Export with the AfCFTA” training programme, as well as new modules to bridge the gap for women and youth-owned/led businesses ready to export under the AfCFTA.
Bridging export capacity-building gaps and expanding the production capacity of small to medium sized enterprises is at the heart of ITC, a joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations, which works closely with key partners to facilitate development and transition economies to become more competitive in global markets.
Such collaborative efforts are critical in contributing to sustainable economic development within the frameworks of the ‘Aid-for-trade agenda’ and the broader United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Viewed as a historical game changer for the continent, the AfCFTA is the world’s largest free trade area since the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO), bringing together 54 African countries and eight regional economic communities (RECs).
It creates a single market, with a population of 1.3 billion people and a Gross Domestic Product of approximately US$2.5 trillion.
The African Union’s Boosting Intra-Africa Trade (BIAT) Action Plan and the AfCFTA are landmark initiatives, which have the potential to bring sustainable transformative change in Africa by promoting regional trade and assisting AU Member States to achieve robust economic growth and sustainable development, leading ultimately to the realisation of the aspirations of African people contained in ‘Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want’.
Already estimates indicate that Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) representing about 80 percent of businesses across the continent, are often owned or led by women.
Additionally, Africa’s youth is one of its great resources with its rising entrepreneurial population.
“The AfCFTA can unlock more trading opportunities to support youth economic empowerment, innovation, and prosperity, especially in the face of
high unemployment rates,” reads the event preview note shared with the media.
“Consequently, African women and youth in business are key potential beneficiaries of the implementation of the AfCFTA and ensuring their inclusion in the implementation of the AfCFTA will be key for its success.”
To ensure that the AfCFTA contributes to gender equality and youth empowerment, the historic agreement will include a dedicated protocol on Women and Youth in Trade.
However, while the negotiation of the Protocol is underway, implementation of the Agreement has already started under the AfCFTA Guided Trade Initiative.
Furthermore, complementary efforts will be required to ensure that the AfCFTA Protocols that have already been concluded are operationalised in a gender- and youth-sensitive way at national and regional levels.
“This requires practical interventions to equip women entrepreneurs with the knowledge and tools to boost their competitiveness and take advantage of new continental market opportunities,” it noted.
The capacity building efforts come on the back of information gaps related to trading under the AfCFTA, which need to be closed.
Trade experts have also said there is a need to address the gender gap in access to finance and attracting investment, building the export and trading capacity of women and youth entrepreneurs, empowering them in regional value chains, and addressing many other barriers faced by women and youth in trade that are particular for these groups in trade.
“This will improve the competitiveness of women and youth-owned and -led businesses in the African market,” said the ITC.
“Evidence suggests that trade leads to significant performance improvements in business outcomes such as boosting employment, reducing unit costs, and increasing incomes.”
According to the organization, businesses that manage to become exporters tend to be more productive than those that have never ventured outside the domestic market.
Hence identifying strategies to support inclusion of women and youth in trade and to boost their export competitiveness would be critical.
This thrust has been buttressed by the UNECA’s preliminary research on SMEs, which indicates that capacity building on the above-mentioned aspects helps build export competitiveness.
It is hoped that access to a wider African market under the AfCFTA can present opportunities for women and youth-owned and -led businesses providing them with a business case for investment to reach the scale and standard of the African market and to create business linkages that enable them to participate in continental supply chains and value chains.
