NewAfricanWoman Issue 49 - Flipbook - Page 20
OP-ED | WOMEN & TRADE
We must think and act big for
Women in the AfCFTA
#HerAfCFTA
The AfCFTA should not be a market that women spectate at, and remain
on the margins of...let us throw all we have into making it the development
accelerator for women, writes Dr. Joy Kategekwa
Photography:shutterstock:ImageFlow.jpg
W
hen I think of women in trade in Africa, I
am not one to limit my horizon to informality and micro-based participation. On the
contrary, I think CEOs of large manufacturing
plants, services firms, and major agricultural enterprises. I see women running major corporations —
offering solutions for the new resilience agenda
that must emerge in a post–polycrisis Africa. I see
women modeling tenacity, values–based leadership, and building the enterprise of the future off a
sustainability-powered compact, which offers African youth a picture in which they visualize themselves and how they can actualize their hopes and
dreams — right here in Africa.
This is neither a farfetched nor an unrealistic
dream. It is exactly the ambition we must have as
we commence the implementation of the African
Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in earnest.
This north star of thinking and doing big for
20l New African Woman l March 2023
women should guide the initiatives we roll out in
the name of development support for the AfCFTA.
In much of my career in trade and development, I
have observed that women's issues are dealt with
from a vulnerability lens, framing support initiations that target micro, small and medium entities
— mostly informal. What this does, psychologically, is create the mental frame of smallness —
where pilots and limited experimentation are good
enough. Naturally, so are the results. Incremental at best.
"Women’s issues are dealt with from a vulnerability
lens… What this does, psychologically, is create the
mental frame of smallness."
But of course, there has been some value in this
approach. However, the time has come to flip the