AfCFTA needs seamless movement of people and nexus with industrialization

Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) can only be successful if there is seamless movement of people, goods and services and a reinforced nexus with the continent’s industrialization so as to effectively realize Africa’s critical development aspirations.
AfCFTA can only be successful if there is seamless movement of people, goods and services, according to Dr. Elasto Hilarious Mugwadi, the chairperson for the Network of African National Human Rights Institutions (NANHRI). Dr. Mugwadi made these remarks recently on the sidelines of the 5th National Human Right Institutions forum of the 73rd Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The theme for the 2-day forum was: “Trade and Human Rights in the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement: Inclusive Implementation of the AfCFTA with Participation of Vulnerable Populations‘. According to Mugwadi, the current regimes of national protectionist policies will substantively and negatively impede trade under this pact. “We can only trade in an integrated Africa where every country is home for everyone. We cannot trade with each other when our laws consider us foreigners to one another,” he stated.
Meanwhile, the African Union (AU) has called on African countries to mutually reinforce the AfCFTA with the continent’s industrialization so as to effectively realize Africa’s critical development aspirations. “Advancing the AfCFTA and Africa’s industrialization side-by-side with deliberate efforts to realize the mutually reinforcing interdependences between the two will provide Africa’s critical success pillar and condition for Agenda 2063,” the AU said in a statement. The statement came ahead of the AU’s high-level industrialization-themed continental gathering — African Union Summit on Industrialization and Economic Diversification, slated for 20-25 November in Niger. “To achieve the aspirations of the AfCFTA, Africa’s industrialization and transformation agenda needs to be supported at the highest national, regional, continental and global levels,” the AU also said.