Esteemed African Business Leaders,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
All Protocols Observed!

It is an honor and a privilege to join you this afternoon for a crucial dialogue on trade and regulatory readiness across our continent.

Let me extend our profound gratitude to Assistant Secretary-General Ms. Sanda Ojiambo and the United Nations Global Compact for convening this timely roundtable, and for the visionary leadership behind the Africa Business Leaders Coalition.

Today, this coalition brings together over seventy of Africa's most influential companies, representing over US$170 billion in annual revenue. It demonstrates what becomes possible when we create structured platforms for private-sector engagement for Africa's transformation.

Africa has traded within itself for centuries. Our forefathers embodied the spirit of Pan-Africanism through commerce, establishing trade partnerships that spanned regions and connected distant economies.
The barriers that now separate these natural trading partners are not geographic; they are man-made obstacles that can be dismantled through our collective decision. Today's initiatives, anchored by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), facilitate economic reunion by vigorously working on removing impediments that have kept old commercial allies apart.

Our presence here—leaders across finance, manufacturing, logistics, technology, and services—signals a shared understanding: Africa's economic future cannot be built by governments alone, neither is the implementation of the related aspirations and Flagship Projects of Agenda 2063. It requires deliberate, strategic partnership between our institutions and the private sector.

Today's discussion comes as the AfCFTA moves from aspiration to full implementation, our payment systems undergo fundamental reform, an AU Credit Rating Agency is being put in place and discussions on restructuring of the global economic order itself are ongoing.

This setting permits the candor we need about our progress and the concrete actions required—public and private sectors together—to deliver genuine transformation.

Agenda 2063 presents a simple proposition: an integrated and prosperous Africa that trades within itself, competes confidently and partners genuinely with the world. We have entered the Second Ten-Year Implementation Plan—the Decade of Acceleration—with clearer delivery arrangements linking continental, regional, and national action.

Yet honesty demands acknowledgement: our internal trade could be substantively increased; Intra-African trade today constitute a merely 15% of the continent total trade.

These statistics represent the cumulative cost of fragmented markets and the interruption of commercial relationships that once flourished naturally across our borders.

The task before us is not to apportion blame, but to reconnect systems—to align regulations, connect infrastructure, promote enabling policies and appropriate standards for value chains to flourish, and make payments interoperable so that trading across Africa becomes simpler than trading beyond our borders.

Colleagues,
Success means getting the foundations right for reconnecting and promoting Intra-African trade. Allow me to highlight the following elements:-

First, regulatory and digital harmonization. The AfCFTA Protocol on Digital Trade provides continental rules for electronic transactions and cross-border data flows. Coupled with the AU Data Policy Framework and Digital Transformation Strategy, we now have unified standards to make e-commerce and digital authentication workable across borders. Our focus today is to facilitate the speedy implementation of these mechanisms.

Second, market transparency from day one. The African Trade Observatory (ATO) provides demand and price signals; the AfCFTA e-Tariff Book clarifies preferential rates and Rules of Origin; the Non-Tariff Barrier mechanism allows time-bound escalation of trade obstacles. These tools are live. The expectation from the private sector is simple: use them, and when they reveal friction, escalate it. Do not route around it. That is how systems are fixed.

Third, payments that stay within our continent. For instance, the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) now operates across multiple monetary zones with over 150 participating banks, reducing cost and settlement times for cross-border trade. This is how we de-risk intra-African transactions in practice.

Fourth, hard connectivity, where it moves the needle. The Second PIDA Priority Action Plan (2021-2030) Projects Prospectus (PIDA-PAP2) prioritizes cross-border transport, energy and ICT corridors through 2030, while the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) advances liberalized routes between early movers. The impact metric is concrete: time and cost to move a shipment or a passenger between African cities.

Fifth, unified experience. The Decade of Acceleration synchronizes operations between continental and regional institutions, so companies experience one integrated market rather than fragmented territories.
Over the medium term, success means connectivity and scale. We expect lower-cost cross-border payments as PAPSS (Pan-African Payment & Settlement System) broadens coverage; digital trade operating with full legal force; air liberalization; and priority infrastructure projects reaching completion along corridors where trading partners have always sought to connect.

Sixth, an African Market that’s in sync with global shifts. The climate-labelled trade standards impose a new reality on our industrial sectors and value-chains development. Supporting an orderly transition of our private sector with supportive infrastructure investments would ensure the relevance of African value chains and their integration both within the continent and in the global chain.

Ladies and gentlemen,
The gains are substantial. With full AfCFTA implementation, Africa's real income can rise seven per cent (7%) by 2035—approximately US$450 billion—while lifting tens of millions from poverty. This isn't creating new wealth; it's unleashing the commercial potential that natural trading partnerships have always possessed.

A recent example is the successful Fourth Edition of the Intra-African Trade Fair, held earlier this month in Algiers, that has generated a historic amount of 48.3 billion USD in trade and investment agreements.
Therefore, our practical posture must move from frameworks to fixes. Let me challenge this room with three specific actions:

First, turn procurement into policy. If the private sector rewired even a fraction of its procurement toward AfCFTA-compliant African suppliers—verifying Rules of Origin via the e-Tariff Book and settling payments via PAPSS—we would anchor demand that de-risks investment in local inputs and components.

Second, measure what matters on corridors. Choose the corridors you rely on and partner with RECs and national authorities to track end-to-end time and cost—from purchase order to final settlement—and feed those numbers into the African Trade Observatory so that we can see, and show progress.

Third, make inclusion a default setting. Operationalize the Women & Youth in Trade Protocol inside your value chains—set targets for onboarding women- and youth-led firms as suppliers and distributors, fast-pay them, and report the results. Inclusion is not a social add-on; it is how we expand the market and build political durability for integration.

My dear colleagues, the African private sector’s center of gravity is in this room. The ABLC alone represents economic weight on a continental scale; together with other African institutions and SMEs, you can shift where value is created and retained.

As we move to our discussion, I invite you to be frank. The distance between our frameworks and your expectations is where execution succeeds or stalls. The next segment must be a practical exchange on harmonization and action at the required levels: National, Regional and Continental.

Let us discuss what we can do together in weeks and months, and where the ABLC can make visible, near-term commitments demonstrating the commercial advantages of trading within Africa.

Our African forefathers understood something we are only relearning: that trade flows naturally when built on value addition, respect, and equitable exchange. They traded smoothly amongst themselves when borders existed only in geography.

The concept of open borders confronts structural, man-made barriers—and what humans construct, humans can deconstruct.

Ladies and gentlemen, The frameworks exist. Now, let the wisdom endure. Let us leverage the wisdom, grounded in our Pan-African values.

Thank you.