NewAfricanWoman Issue 49 - Flipbook - Page 21
WOMEN & TRADE
script, and do the exponential when it comes to
the topic of women in trade.
Place feet on the pedal of breadth
Women are the engine of trade — and it will be
women that drive the transformation we are all
waiting for. A 2022 report — The Engine Of Trade
in Africa: Amplifying The Voices Of Women Across
Africa On How To Make The Afcfta Protocol On
Women And Youth In Trade Work For Development — jointly produced by UNDP, AfCFTA and
UN Women, confirmed a 70% presence of women
in cross-border trade for products including: in the
food, cosmetics, jewelry, and clothing production,
as well as in services such as tourism, fashion, and
professional services.
We must build from the base of their current
position, with the vision board of women seizing the 1.3 billion people, and a growing market.
We must place our feet on the pedal of breadth,
depth and scale. We must also, invest development resources in supporting women to expand
production. Women can move from buying and
selling (trading) to creating those made in Africa
products. They have a gem — an innate ability to
leverage sisterhood — and cluster, aggregate and
bring to market larger volumes.
If these are of better quality, they will fetch higher
prices and land in export markets across Africa,
and indeed ashore. I have seen this in action
for example in a UNDP-supported shea butter
support programme in Tamale northern Ghana.
Laser–focused support on the practicalities of
export certification changed the prospects of
these women, who now have secure and predictable markets in the United States. And it need
not stop here.
Winning in the AfCFTA
Women can create the industries that add value
to Africa’s wealth of raw materials, and in doing
so they can reap the more lucrative parts of value
chains that are concretely on offer in the AfCFTA,
in sectors such as automobiles, lithium-ion batteries, cocoa, soya, clothing and textiles, leather and
leather products, pharmaceuticals, vaccines,
mobile financial services and cultural and entertainment services. By getting into manufacturing and services, women will be front runners in
capturing gains. They will create better jobs and
become the flagbearers for Africa’s socioeconomic progress.
However, informality will have to be tackled if
women are to win in the AfCFTA. Trade agreements are, by definition, avenues for preferential
treatment in formal trade. And while simplified
trade regimes play a role in inclusivity, they must
be viewed as transitory. Getting women into the
fold of formal trade will likely flow naturally as
they get more into making the goods and services
targeted at the One Africa Market.
| OP-ED
There are heavy fences to scale. But governments
can scale them, for instance, by ensuring that
procurement laws offer predictable and sizeable
markets for women; that trade facilitation measures tackle harassment, bribery and undue delays
at ports; that women desks exist and offer fast–
track access for women–led exporter consignments; and overall, that market–creating signals
incentivizing women to get involved in the AfCFTA
are sent.
Accelerator for women
The AfCFTA should not be a market that women
spectate at and remain on the margins of. And
this should be our preoccupation as trade capacity development practitioners. Let us do big things
to bring women to the center: like creating an
AfCFTA Women’s Bank, with single–digit interest
rates, and simple collateral conditions, diffused
with accessibility across the continent.
Let us also coalesce together as women and hold
one another’s hands as we match towards the
prosperity that the One African Market offers all
of us. In 2023, a year in which the African Union
is promoting the acceleration of the AfCFTA as its
central theme, let us — women and men — throw
all we have into making the AfCFTA the development accelerator for women.
This is why the work UNDP does, with others in
global advocacy, regional technical support and
country-level portfolios for women to lead in the
AfCFTA, is something I am proud to wake up to
do, every day. This is why I also believe the African Women Professionals in Trade (AWPIT) is such
a powerful promise. It sends a signal that we will
not stop until we succeed. And this is why
#HERAfCFTA must be more than a hashtag. It
should be that powerful women’s movement and
the song we sing each day until uhuru comes.
■
Dr. Joy Kategekwa is the Regional Strategy Advisor on
Africa at UNDP. She is passionate about the power of
trade & development for Africa’s development
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March 2023 New African Woman
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