Youth awareness about and engagement in discourse and the implementation of the African Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement are crucial components for the propulsion of the objectives of the continent’s premium instrument on the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers in the domains of goods, services, and labour mobility. Awareness and engagement are both critical for the intermediate and long-term ends of the Agreement.
This paper is a summation of the learnings gleaned from The Youth Cafe’s just concluded first of its kind Continental Scoping Study on African Young Peoples’ Awareness of the AfCFTA and their perceived role as stakeholders in its implementation under the ongoing AfCFTA Youth Inclusion Accelerator Project (AfCFTA-YIAP) aimed toward Amplified Continental Youth Mobilization, Awareness and Engagement in AfCFTA Processes.
The study is a result of content-wide desk/literature reviews, widely circulated electronic surveys, interviews, and polls conducted to establish the levels of awareness of young people about AfCFTA and their supposed place and role in the implementation of the same. As a corollary to the referenced Scoping Study, this paper seeks to inspire stakeholders who are invested in youth causes—such as governments, intergovernmental bodies, development partners, legislative institutions and private sector—to make genuine and tangible adjustments to their plans and investment priorities to fit youth needs. This will in turn harness young people’s ingenuity and energy—while resolving the socioeconomic challenges that punctuate their plight as an outcome of unemployment and constraints to mobility.
Theoretical models and experimentation with free trade affirm the notion that the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers unleashes tremendous power amongst fledgling economies, which are predominant across continental Africa.
With a decisive sixty-five (65) percent of the population aged under thirty-five, Africa is the world’s youngest continent, the odds for free trade are in favour of the landmass’s one billion citizens.
The enactment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement is a launchpad for the eradication of perennial challenges such as stunted industrialization, limitations to labour, goods, and service mobility, as well as youth employment. Be that as it may, a recent study shows that the very demographic that stands to benefit from these developments is far removed, if not altogether detached from the processes leading to the actualization of the AfCFTA.
Against the above background, this policy brief is a compendium of action points that have been drawn from findings and recommendations of the aforesaid scoping study. Policymakers, legislators, scholars, development practitioners, governmental and intergovernmental bodies will find the contents of this brief instructive insofar as inclusion of, and investment in young people’s engagement with AfCFTA processes.
In its totality, the document enjoins all relevant actors to channel their energies towards ensuring that Africa’s youth are adequately aware, skilled, mobilized and capacitated to play a role in the implementation of this landmark free trade instrument.
INTRODUCTION
Ubiquitous findings that were made under the abovementioned Scoping Study include:
a) The AfCFTA presents an abundance of promises for youth, but youth are missing on the table - structural constraints are excluding youth. Drastic measures are urgently required to make youth stakeholders, not spectators
b) Youth will understandably struggle to own the AfCFTA as theirs c)The AfCFTA is blind on gender equality – do young women stand to gain?
c) Official structures of youth representation do not prominently feature in the AfCFTA implementation frameworks– what isn’t planned won’t get done
d) Collective action is needed to address the complete absence of youth specific trade facilitation support services in key institutions implies that youth will not be catered for,
e) A wave of sky-high excitement and a promise that youth stand to gain a great deal, but the AfCFTA frameworks may be too formal, too expensive for a highly informal African youth,
f)Youth knowledge of the AfCFTA is low and their capacity hangs in balance
g) A gap exists in the mapping, documenting and profiling African youth led businesses – a key area that will require intervention by policy makers, development partners and other players
h) Youth are misunderstood, taken as a homogeneous group and their needs and how they will be addressed particularly under AfCFTA is unclear.
i) A clear gap exists in the literature on youth participation in the AfCFTA processes so far.
The Assembly of Heads of State and Government should work with the African Union Heads of State and Government secure Mandate and policy instrument that allows for the African Union Commission, Council of Ministers, the AfCFTA Secretariat to place emphasis on Youth Inclusion in all AfCFTA processes (negotiations, technical working groups, national and regional implementation strategies), and at all levels of its implementation and policy making, in the spirit of Agenda 2063 and the African Union Youth Charter.
Consequently, the Council of Ministers comprising Ministers of Trade or “such other ministers, authorities, or officials duly designated by the State Parties” should put in place measures and take steps to ensure youth are mainstreamed in AfCFTA processes at the National, Regional and Continental level, including all committees or other working groups, to ensure effective and inclusive implementation of the Agreement.
Working with Development Partners, the Council of Ministers should mandate and resource the AfCFTA to take the necessary steps to institute mechanisms and work with other partners toward enhancing the capacity and technical training of civil servants between the ages of 18-35, who are domiciled in Trade Ministries and Agencies, private sector umbrella organization and representatives of SMEs, in order for them to effectively participate in AfCFTA negotiations and implementations processes.
What should be done by public authorities such as ministries, departments, and authorities?
Further, noting that Societal and behavioural change is often driven by young people, we URGE the Council of Ministers to place youth at the centre of National and Regional implementation strategies of the AfCFTA, which includes communication strategies, popularization, and messaging of the AfCFTA.
The Committee of Senior Trade officials should work with the AfCFTA Secretariat and thematic Technical Working Groups to allocate resources necessary for developing and disseminating information of the AfCFTA a drive to step up popularization programs and strategies in collaboration with youth organizations at the National, Regional and Continental levels.