African Integration Day 2023.

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July 07, 2023 to July 09, 2023

African Integration Day 2023.
“Accelerating Job Creation, Digital and Financial Inclusion in the AfCFTA market”
7-9 JULY 2023

The African Union led by the Department of Economic Development, Tourism, Trade, Industry, Mining (ETTIM) will commemorate the African Integration Day 2023 under the theme “Accelerating Job Creation, Digital and Financial Inclusion in the AfCFTA market”

About the African Integration Day.
In 2019, the African Union Heads of State and Government designated 7th of July of each year as the “African Integration Day" to celebrate major achievements attained in regional and continental integration process, and also, to deliberate on critical lessons learned, with a view of addressing challenges faced.

Africa's integration Agenda is enshrined in the Abuja Treaty (1991), and has an overarching goal of achieving an African Economic Community at continental level, in six successive stages, which include the strengthening of sectoral cooperation and the creation of regional free trade areas, establishment of a continental Customs Union, a Common Market and a monetary and economic union. It is understood that consolidation of the Common Market will hinge free movement of people, right of residence and right of establishment.

A historic milestone for regional integration in Africa was recorded on 1 January 2021 with the start of trading under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The remarkable speed of negotiations, signature, ratifications and entry into force of the AfCFTA Agreement took place between June 2015 and May 2019 and is unprecedented in the treaty making history of the African Union just behind the Constitutive Act of the Union. Despite the adoption and implementation of the AfCFTA, the results in attaining the objectives of the Abuja Treaty remain rather mixed with the RECs at different stages of implementation of the Treaty. In addition, more effort is needed to make the ordinary African Citizens understand and own the regional integration process.

The mobilisation and enthusiasm observed during the first commemoration of the Africa
Integration Day in 2020, 2021 and 2022 is a clear testimony of the importance that the
African Union leadership attaches to faster regional and continental integration as
embedded in the Abuja Treaty.

In 2013, member states of the African Union agreed upon "Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want", working towards an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its citizens, representing a dynamic force in the international arena.

Thematic focus of the African Integration Day 2023.
The overall objective of the commemoration is to deliberate on how to use integration including the AfCFTA as a tool for the continent’s economic recovery due to the multiple crises and shocks due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian-Ukraine crisis and its impact on the global economy as well as the challenges due to climate change inter alia. The African continent faces a more immediate threat, and this is due to the rising unemployment, especially for the 18 million youth that enter the job market every year who are unable to find jobs. It is therefore imperative for the AfCFTA implementation to specifically focus on the creation of jobs in order to drive shared prosperity across the continent.

The AfCFTA is the world’s largest free trade area bringing together the 55 countries of the African Union (AU) and eight (8) Regional Economic Communities (RECs). The overall mandate of the AfCFTA is to create a single continental market with a population of about 1.3 billion people and a combined GDP of approximately US$ 3.4 trillion.
As part of its mandate, the AfCFTA is to eliminate trade barriers and boost intra-Africa trade. In particular, it is to advance trade in value-added production across all service sectors of the African Economy. The AfCFTA will contribute to establishing regional value chains in Africa, enabling investment and job creation. The practical implementation of the AfCFTA has the potential to foster industrialisation, job creation, and investment, thus enhancing the competitiveness of Africa in the medium to long term.
Trading under the Africa Continental Free Trade Area Agreement began on 1 January 2021. As at February 2022, eight countries representing the five regions of the continent - Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Rwanda, Tanzania and Tunisia – participated in the AfCFTA’s Guided Trade Initiative, which seeks to facilitate trade among interested AfCFTA state parties that have met the minimum requirements for trade, under the Agreement. This initiative supports matchmaking businesses and products for export and import between State Parties. The products earmarked to trade under the Initiative include: ceramic tiles; batteries, tea, coffee, processed meat products, corn starch, sugar, pasta, glucose syrup, dried fruits, and sisal fibre, amongst others, in line with the AfCFTA focus on value chain development.
In the year 2023, the AfCFTA Guided Trade shall also focus on Trade in Services in the five priority areas, ie. Tourism, transport, Business Services; Communication Services; Financial Services; Transport Services, and Tourism and Travel-related Services. The ultimate objective is to ensure that AfCFTA is truly operational and the gains from the initiative are improved implementation in order to achieve increased inter-regional and intra-Africa trade that would yield economic development for the betterment of the continent at large.
As of March 2023, 46 countries had ratified and deposited the instruments of ratifications with the African Union Commission. Mozambique has ratified the Agreement but is yet to deposit the instruments of ratification with the AU Commission. The following countries were yet to ratify the Agreement. Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Eritrea, Madagascar, Benin, Liberia, and Libya. Eritrea is yet to sign the Agreement.

The African Union theme of year 2023 is “Acceleration of AfCFTA Implementation”
Learn more about trading under the AfCFTA on https://au-afcfta.org/

Industrialisation and the AfCFTA – realizing the inter-dependencies: Africa-Industrialisation (manufacturing and tradeable services) and the AfCFTA (markets and trade) are mutually reinforcing. Industrialization should not be perceived as a single pathway for sustainable development in Africa. Rather, Industrialization, with strong multisectoral and multi-directional linkages to domestic economies, will help African countries to achieve higher economic growth rates and economic diversification. Success in Industrialisation will be at the core of Africa’s efforts to address key structural economic growth and development weaknesses and fragilities, some of which COVID-19 has exposed – from poverty and inequality through to inadequately developed education, health, housing and sanitation services. Seeing beyond the current challenges requires policymakers to tackle head-on other supply-side structural bottlenecks and barriers such as energy and infrastructure for enhanced enterprise competitiveness. This also places due pressure on policymakers to improve business and regulatory regimes to enhance private capital flows, absorption and adaptation of technology, ICTs, artificial intelligence, and skills transfer to unleash private sector growth.

Furthermore, sustainable success on the Africa-Industrialisation front will only be achieved with deliberate efforts to integrate and systemically address Africa’s underlying development features, such as the micro-small-medium enterprises and informal economy, the urban-rural transition, socio-economic diversity across the 55 AU member states, as well as linkages between education-skills development and industry. Cross-cutting issues such as gender, climate change, energy security, youthful population and growing unemployment, to facilitate the evolution of a sustainable and inclusive industrialisation pathway for the continent.
Africa has a lot to learn from her own experiences on Industrialisation over the last 4-5 decades as well as from other continents. However, what is abundantly clear is that Industrialisation successes in Europe and the Americas and more recently in Asia cannot be replicated in Africa. Apart from just that, Africa has its own unique circumstances, and many of the factors that propelled industrial success in other continents no longer exist. This is why advancing Africa-Industrialisation has also to take deliberate consideration of what can and should work for Africa while ensuing interdependences with the rest of the world in those areas that can amplify the continent’s benefits.

Learn more about Africa’s Industrialization agenda on https://au.int/en/summit-africa-industrialization-economic

ACTIVITIES AT THE AFRICAN INTEGRATION DAY 2023.
There is a growing community of businesses, women and youth led that are keen to participate in the AfCFTA process. The Guided Trade Initiative has demonstrated that Africans are ready to trade under the AfCFTA rules and they need more support to be able to do so in large numbers. This is why enabling tools and mechanisms are critical to the acceleration of intra-African trade, which is why it is necessary to become concrete and provide specific tools that can be used to participate meaningfully in the AfCFTA.

The AUC, OECD and the AeTrade Group will also officially unveil products and services under the Smart Finance and Digital Banking Initiative endorsed by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government in February 2022. This commemoration will provide a platform that ensure broad participation of all actors at the national, regional and continental levels, including Member States, RECs, the African Diaspora, Development Partners, Academia, Private Sector, Civil Society, Women and Youth to put a spotlight on the AU Theme of the Year on accelerating the implementation of the AfCFTA.

The three-day event will;

Provide a platform where the main players, including RECs, policymakers, private sector, civil society, will openly discuss the challenges facing regional and continental integration, with a view to providing practical solutions to overcome them;
Foster citizens’ participation with a view of instilling an unwavering commitment to regional integration, job creation and innovation in Africa; <
Create a new positive mind-set on the importance of integration as a tool to accelerate job creation and economic recovery from COVID-19 pandemic for those living in the continent and in the diaspora;
Celebrate the progress made in the implementation of the African Integration Agenda including, the launch of the AfCFTA and its implementation;
Reflect and share lessons learned, with a view to accelerate decent job creation
Gather opinions from all relevant stakeholders in the formulation and implementation of key strategies for enhancing the coordination of regional and continental integration projects;
Enhance the realization of a faster Africa integration process and agenda with a view to achieving Africa’s structural transformation for inclusive and sustainable economic development as outlined in “Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want”;n>
Enable the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat and other African Union organs to communicate their integration and job creation projects and programmes through exhibition stands and strengthen mechanism to enhance dialogue with African citizens on matters regarding the AfCFTA and job opportunities, as well as explore opportunities for cooperation with relevant stakeholders for faster realization of the 80-125 million job creation target;
Sensitize the people on the benefits of integration as well as on the Status of Regional and Continental Integration;
Identify key challenges facing African citizens in the job creation process as well as necessary measures to address them for their benefit.

The African Integration Week shall have an exhibition to showcase examples of interventions that create jobs on a large scale. All partners who make a financial contribution to the Africa Integration Week and the Job creation Forum shall be designated a limited space to promote their products and services. All AU organs, Regional Economic Communities and specialized agencies will have priority to display their job creation initiatives for the public. It will be an Open Day for ordinary citizens to be informed about the AU’s activities.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES
Consensus on the principles behind job creation policy mix including some recommendations
Collaboration relationships for problem solving of emergent issues including the green economy and opportunities for job creation.

Increased cooperation and collaboration among innovators, development partners, public and private sectors and other stakeholders on the continent and beyond in solving the complex challenge of job creation.

It will also provide a platform for establishment of partnerships and cooperation for job creation.
A monitoring platform for jobs across the continent to be developed.

Resource and Reference Materials.
African Integration Booklet