The Africa Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA, comes with numerous economic opportunities and the free movement of people, goods and services.
Launched in January 2021, the largest global free trade area could transform the continent’s
economic prospects, including promoting safe and orderly migration, regional integration and investment opportunities.
Start-ups in The Gambia are already excited about harnessing some of the opportunities that comes with the continent-wide free trade agreement.
“The AfCFTA is a great opportunity for African entrepreneurs, especially the young ones who are looking for further collaborations within the continent,” Alieu Jallow, the Founder and Project Manager of Start Up Incubator Gambia, said in an interview.
Start-Up Incubator is the first ever business incubator center in the Gambia. It is a co-working space for young entrepreneurs, with cubicles, computers, high-speed internet, printing and a fully equipped training room with a capacity of 25 participants. It serves as a networking space where young and emerging entrepreneurs are connected to the right insights, mentors, influencers, industry partners, and investors.
Travelling in Africa comes with a lot of hurdles, and for a long time, African trade and integration has been a challenge. However, Jallow is optimistic that all these unnecessary bottlenecks could be eliminated with the effective implementation of the free trade agreement.
“It presents a perfect deal for African entrepreneurs where certain entrepreneurship models could be transferred from one country to another,” he said, citing the successful Fintech story in Kenya which he believes could be replicated throughout the continent within the fringes of AfCFTA.
He also said that the issue of migration within Africa and integration of Africans is already made easier by this milestone agreement if it is effectively implemented.
“Leveraging on the free trade zone as a bloc will help Africa negotiate better economic deals with its development partners and this will create more investment and job opportunities for Africans that will eventually facilitate easy and orderly migration within the continent,” Jallow said.
In previous trade agreements, like the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a trade policy between United States of America and African countries, the Gambia was among the least benefiting nations from (AGOA), according to the previous government.
This was due to the fact that Gambian entrepreneurs weren’t well equipped, according to Jallow. “If attitudes don’t change, the AfCFTA will just be another failed policy where public officials would hold mere meetings, workshops in fancy hotels and collect per diems from travels and no direct impact would be felt on the grassroots communities in The Gambia,” he said.
“The bureaucracy in Africa should be dismantled yet borders should be policed to deter illegal trade,” the young entrepreneur whose vision is to see a borderless Africa in terms of trade and investment, entrepreneurship and migration, and more integration and cultural exchanges, said.
For the former Minister of Trade, Regional Integration and Employment, Abdou Kolley, AfCFTA agreement provides a framework for economic integration through liberalization of trade in goods and services.
He said that the effective implementation of the agreement calls for the free movement of persons within the continent with the right to residency and establishment.
“If all signatories honor their obligations, citizens should be able to move freely from one country to another to carry on their businesses,” Kolley added.
The former Minister of Trade under the previous government which largely negotiated this policy on behalf of The Gambia, said that with the right to residency and establishment, citizens will be able to invest and carry on with their businesses in any member country with the same residency and investment rights from the country of origin of migrant or investor.
He said that this is why the framework agreement provides for additional protocols on investment and competition to decide on those issues, noting in effect, for a free trade area to be effective there must be investment and the conditions for such investment must be provided.
“Thus, the AfCFTA provides a great opportunity for investment and growth, but only if member states remain committed to the true spirit of integration,” Kolley stated.
Momodou Bah, a graduate and specialist in African studies from the University of Sheikh Anta Diop, Dakar Senegal, believes that Africans share similar integration and migration challenges.
“We have a lot in common as Africans, so the young people on the continent today are fighting for more collaborations and the concept of one Africa,” he said.
Bah added that due to the negative implications of the covid19 on the African economies, Africans could leverage on this trade policy to boost their internal migration and economic activities.
“Most Africans move from one country to another to buy and sell goods and services, as is the case with Gambia and Senegal,” he said. “Similar activities exist in other countries that share borders across the continent.”
According to him, the AfCFTA will complement the already existing migration, integration and free movement of persons policies within the sub-regional blocs through easy acquisition of authentic travelling documents across Africa.
