FAO and the African Union will be launching the Framework for boosting intra-African trade in agricultural commodities and services.

• The Framework is the first of its kind. Together, FAO and the African Union Commission are supporting countries to implement the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement in the agriculture and food sector.
• The Framework includes two main parts: (1) First it presents a summary of the key issues and challenges to improving food security through enhancing intra-African trade and (2) suggests approaches to tackle them in the context of the AfCFTA.
• The Framework is a tool to support efforts toward inclusive agricultural transformation by attracting new public and private investment for the development of Africa's food systems and the expansion of intra-African trade.

Date: 15 April 2021

Time: 11am GMT

Zoom launch with interpretation in Arabic, French and Portuguese.

Register: HERE

Background

The Framework for Boosting Intra-African Trade in Agricultural Commodities and Services is built around the fifth commitment of the 2014 Malabo Declaration to triple intra-African trade in agricultural commodities and services by 2025.

Increased trade will help create sustainable jobs, incomes and livelihoods while improving long-term agricultural productivity and food security on the continent. Recent evidence suggests that the export of agroprocessed and other value added goods made in Africa is greater in regional markets than in external markets outside Africa, typically dominated by mostly low-value raw material exports.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which will start trading in January 2021, is expected to accelerate economic integration and expand trade in Africa’s first single market of 1.2 billion people, valued at USD 2.5 trillion. The World Bank (2013) estimates that the value of Africa’s agriculture and agribusiness market could expand to USD 1 trillion by 2030. The agreement establishing the AfCFTA entered into force on 30 May 2019, covering 54 of the 55 African Union (AU) Member States (except Eritrea), 36 of which have ratified the agreement so far.

 African countries have undertaken commitments to remove tariffs on 90 percent of over 5 000 tariff lines as well as liberalise services. It is estimated that tariff liberalisation in the transition phase could generate welfare gains of USD 16.1 billion, and growth in intra-African trade of 33 percent up from 15 percent (UNCTAD, 2019). However, Africa’s growth is likely to be adversely affected by the COVID-19 shock. The health crisis has already erased some of the gains achieved by African countries over the last two decades, marking the first recession in the region in 25 years. Restrictive measures have disrupted essential services such as food production and processing, imports of food and other essentials, transportation and other key functions of agricultural supply chains. Lessons learned from the pandemic crisis include maintaining open trade channels safely, policy coordination and transparency between member states and protecting essential workers to ensure that public health and food systems continue to operate.

The pandemic has exposed Africa’s food insecurity and vulnerabilities to trade disruptions of food imports on which the continent depends. For example, the number of undernourished people in Africa increased to 256 million people in 2018, well before the current pandemic. In the next 10 years, it is projected that agricultural demand in Africa will continue to outstrip agricultural supply. Despite its vast agricultural potential, Africa remains a net importer of agricultural products with a food import bill of about USD 80 billion per year compared with exports of USD 61 billion in 2015–2017. Africa is ranked among the lowest performing regions, according to the World Bank Doing Business indicators and as measured by the share of intra-African agricultural trade as a percentage of total African agricultural trade, which has consistently remained below 20 percent in recent years. Overall progress on achieving the Malabo Declaration commitments by 2025 and on regional integration in general has been slow due to country disparities in the levels of development, inconsistent and conflicting regulations and standards, as well as infrastructure and connectivity problems at the border and behind the border that add to the cost of doing business in Africa (Benin, 2020).

Join the conversation on our Social Media channels:

• @FAOAfrica
• Hashtags: #AfCFTA (French: #ZLECAf) #OneAfricanMarket