Economic development in Africa: Reaping the potential benefits of the African Continental Free Trade Area for inclusive growth

The Trade and Development Board

1. Welcomes the UNCTAD secretariat’s Economic Development in Africa Report 2021: Reaping the Potential Benefits of the African Continental Free Trade Area for Inclusive Growth, and commends the report for providing valuable information on specific elements and channels through which complementary interventions and partnerships under the African Continental Free Trade Area can unlock potential economic and social benefits;
2. Takes note of the main policy messages of the report, in particular on the significant value of the African Continental Free Trade Area to be achieved through continental cooperation, economic diversification, building greater resilience to global economic shocks and inclusive transformation and development, including by enhancing regional value chains and intraregional trade, fostering trade and industrialization, ensuring increased participation of women, youth and other vulnerable groups, as well as locally owned enterprises, and by integrating informal economic actors, including microenterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises into the formal economy;
3. Acknowledges the report’s contribution to highlighting the continent’s untapped export potential, which can be realized through the implementation of relevant policies, including by strengthening productive capacities, ensuring tariff liberalization under the African Continental Free Trade Area and addressing various intra-African non-tariff barriers, such as unnecessary non-tariff measures, infrastructure gaps and market information gaps; notes furthermore that countries in Africa need to align their trade and investment facilitation policies to ensure consistency between diversification objectives and inclusivity, address overreliance on commodity exports and provide support for microenterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises to thrive;
4. Requests that UNCTAD continue supporting African countries, regional economic communities and the African Continental Free Trade Area secretariat, through its three pillars of work of research and policy analysis, technical cooperation and consensus- building, in building their capacity and contributing to the effective implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area, in order to help unlock the untapped potential of the African Continental Free Trade Area, reap its benefits, harness domestic and foreign investment and contribute to the achievement of Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals;
5. Invites Africa’s development partners to continue supporting the continent, in the spirit of shared responsibility in harnessing the potential benefits of the African Continental Free Trade Area for inclusive growth.