Ratified AfCFTA aims to unlock opportunities for women entrepreneurs |17 June 2021

Mrs Albert

The National Assembly on Tuesday June 15 approved the motion to ratify the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), in accordance with Article 64 (4) of the Constitution.

The agreement, an important project of the African Union (AU), has the primary aim of boosting intra-African trade by providing a comprehensive and mutually beneficial trade agreement among member states, covering trade in goods and services, investment, intellectual property rights and competition policy.

The general objectives of the AfCFTA are to create a single market for goods and services, facilitated by movement of persons in order to deepen the economic integration of the African continent, to create a liberalised market for goods and services and enhance the competitiveness of the economies of party states within the continent and global market. Furthermore, the AfCFTA seeks to promote industrial development through diversification and regional value chain development, agricultural development and food security and resolve the challenges of multiple and overlapping memberships, as well as expediting the regional and continental integration processes.

As conferred by members of the assembly and the Department of Trade, AfCTFTA is a great opportunity for national businesses to seize and invest safely overseas. Among the numerous benefits that businesses, consumers and the economy stand to benefit from the agreement, are exposure and accessibility to a larger market, alternative access to resources, in addition to helping address challenges, notably with employment, creation of wealth and enticement of foreign direct investment.

Africa stands out from the rest of the world with the highest proportion of women entrepreneurs, with 24 percent of its entrepreneurs being female. However, African, female entrepreneurs’ share in cross-border trade and investment remains far lower than men’s and their needs and perspectives are seldom taken into account in the regional integration process.

Chair of the Comesa Federation of Women in Business (COMFWB) Seychelles Chapter, Claudette Albert, is of the view that the agreement and mechanisms in place to facilitate its provisions, is especially beneficial for women entrepreneurs, both on the continent and across Africa.

“On the African continent, 70 percent of traders in the informal sectors are women and the AfCFTA is a great opportunity for them to regularise their businesses and gain access to new trading opportunities afforded by the agreement,” Mrs Albert said.

“According to statistics, commerce in Africa is estimated to be around R69 billion in 2019, and this represents numerous opportunities for investment and commerce in different sectors, thereby contributing towards the domestic economy. The tourism sector for instance has such potential as many of our brothers and sisters from the continent desire to visit our beautiful country, and up until now, we are yet to grab the opportunity to explore markets that are worth millions of Rupees. The same applies for the fishing sector, as the continent consumes a lot of fish,” Mrs Albert stated.

According to Mrs Albert, the COMFWB is inextricably linked to the AfCFTA, as a platform to encourage women entrepreneurs to network with each other, and as a tool for encourage start-ups and to propel business growth.

The COMFWB was established in July 1993 in Zimbabwe to promote programmes that integrate women into trade and development activities in Eastern and Southern Africa: in particular, in the fields of industry, trade and services, agriculture, fishing, energy, transport and communications, natural resources and mining, with the main objective of improving the economic conditions of women in the sub-region as well as increasing the awareness of women in development and business issues at the policy level.

“The programmes of the COMFWB fosters sharing and networking among our women and participants. One thing which is exemplary on the African continent is that they have cooperatives and groupings that are very productive and work well together, as well as being profitable, so we stand to learn so much through networking and sharing of the best practices relating to trading and exploiting or penetrating new markets,” she added.

“Small as we are, we have many things that we can trade, we need to focus on the quality and scale-up and I think right now Seychelles needs to focus on economic diversification and to explore new markets. We need to learn to network and work towards forming cooperatives as is the case on the continent, where the power lies in grouping together in cooperatives, and the cooperatives are actually productive and profitable,” Mrs Albert added.

The COMFWB Seychelles chapter has thus far participated in a first COMFWB Trade Fair held in Malawi. The entity is also receiving lots of support to host training sessions with a training scheduled to start in July for around 30 participants.

Indeed, the AfCFTA promises to unlock the potential for African women to grow their businesses from micro to macro enterprises, recognising the need to build and improve the export capacity of both formal and informal service suppliers, with particular attention to micro, small and medium size enterprises in which women and youth actively participate. Furthermore, the AfCFTA Protocols on Trade in Goods, Trade in Services, Investment, Intellectual Property Rights and Competition Policy provide clear guidelines to ensure emerging enterprises and infant industries are protected, thus adding impetus to the agenda of gender equality, women empowerment and youth development.

Laura Pillay