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The Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat will work with stakeholders, including governments, the private sector and development partners, to create an enabling environment for infrastructure development.
This is because infrastructure remains a critical bottleneck in efficient transport and logistics in the progress of AfCFTA.
The Chief of Staff of the AfCFTA Secretariat, Rui Pedro Afonso Livramento, made this known at a press conference at the secretariat in Accra yesterday, as part of preliminary activities to usher in this year’s Africa Prosperity Dialogues (APD 2025).
He expressed the hope that the dialogue would generate valuable insights and momentum to accelerate progress towards a shared vision of a prosperous and integrated African continent.
“As we prepare for the APD, the AfCFTA Secretariat looks forward to working closely with the media to build momentum and amplify the message that Africa is ready to deliver on its promise of economic transformation through collective action and strategic investments,” he stated.
He stressed the role of the media in shaping the narrative of the prosperity of Africa and progress.
The APD 2025 will come off from January 30 to February 1, this year, at the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC), where over 3,000 participants from 46 countries will discuss how to deliver Africa’s single market through the provision of the necessary infrastructure.
The participants are made up of heads of state, institutional heads, industry leaders, chief executive officers, entrepreneurs, ministers, policymakers, thought leaders and development partners across the continent and other parts of the world.
APD 2025, organised by the Africa Prosperity Network (APN) in collaboration with the AfCFTA Secretariat, is on the theme: “Delivering Africa’s Single Market through Infrastructure: Invest. Connect. Integrate”.
Participants from the breakaway Sahel Region are expected to fully take part in this year’s APD.
It will be made up of a number of breakfast meetings with over eight sessions, including workshops, presentations, panel discussions and practical networking opportunities.
Mr Livramento said though the AfCFTA had made significant progress since its launch with a solid institutional framework and growing trade, the slow development of infrastructure was hindering its accelerated progress.
“For example, at 30 to 40 per cent to intra-African trade costs, hindering small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in particular. To address this, the Secretariat is championing the establishment of trade aggregators to integrate SMEs into continental value chains,” he stated.
The AfCFTA Secretariat Chief of Staff further observed that with Ghana, Egypt, Rwanda, Kenya and South Africa leading the way, the dialogue this year would emphasise the crucial role of infrastructure development in realising the vision of AFCFTA as a single integrated market for goods, services, and investments across the continent.
Those pillars, according to Mr Livramento, had high priorities and by emphasising infrastructure development, investment, mobilisation, enhanced connectivity and digital innovation, the APD would play an important role in addressing the implementation and unlocking the past potential of the AfCFTA to drive the economic transformation of Africa.
The Head of Communications at APN, Prince Moses, said this year’s dialogues would have two types – the business and policy leaders’ dialogues, as well as the presidential and leaders’ dialogues.
Policies
The APN communications head said information asymmetry was one of the biggest reasons why policies did not speak to the private sector actors who were supposed to implement them.
He gave an assurance that the dialogues would look at that.
Mr Moses explained that there would also be sessions on delivering accessible, affordable and sustainable energy solutions for Africa, such as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam which, he said, could power the whole of East Africa and asked why there could not be a regional collaboration to make that happen.
