This is the 3rd Roundtable on equity/fairness in Boosting Intra-Africa Trade-African Continental Free Trade Agreement (BIAT-AfCFTA) Trade-induced Industrialization and Integration organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Pan-African Strategic and Policy Research Group (PANAFSTRAG), in partnership and the African Association for Public Administration and Management (AAPAM). It is a continuation of a series of annual Roundtable on enabling equity/fairness in BIAT-AfCFTA.
The outcomes of the first and second Roundtables were the transformation of NEPAD to African Union Development Agency-AUDA. In addition, the AU, Technology and Innovation Unit accepted the initiative and organized the inaugural AfCFTA Stakeholders Forum in Dakar in December 2018. The Forum is now part of the permanent AfCFTA Framework and will be an annual activity.
The third Roundtable is focused on Trade Finance and Regional Integration in Africa, within the context of the Boosting Intra-African Trade cluster of the African Union Regional based Continental integration agenda within the Continental Free Trade Agreement (CFTA).
The roundtable will also consider the ongoing efforts of a gradual build-up of a sub-regional/Continental Payments System within the emerging framework of digital trade finance tools such as FINTECH which will continue to enhance financial inclusivity and accessibility for traders and rural/urban consumers.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has a multi-million dollars ParTech Africa Fund for Fintech, Insuretech, pay as you go, off-grid energy for online and mobile consumers as well as tech innovation enterprises. This is part of the boosting intra-African trade programme of Partech with the support from AfDB/EU Partnership1. There are increasing numbers of international and continental institutions and organizations supporting increasing numbers of Start-Ups which are realizing the objectives of Boost Intra-African Trade. A good example is the Alliance for Financial Inclusion with support from Bill Gates Foundation.
In line with the above, both Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have institutionalized digital services in their various structures and programmes which other Regional Economic Communities (RECs) may soon follow, signifying future growth, impact, resilience and sustainability of the national, regional and continental payment system.