AfCFTA

 Almost sixty percent of the African population is under the age of twenty five making it the world’s youngest continent. Each year in Africa, eleven million young people enter the job market. As the AfCFTA comes into effect, the youth should lead in taking advantage of the opportunities that come with the implementation of this milestone. The AfCFTA breaks trade barriers and speeds up the movement of goods and persons across the continents borders. In order to rope in the African Youth a couple of issues have to be addressed to facilitate youth involvement.

Globalization has and continues to change overnight, efforts in leveraging the skill set we offer the African youth of today need to be upscaled For instance the skills acquired through school might not be the expected market ready skills, this is not to insinuate that our curriculums are far behind but with technological advancement we need little twitches here and there to adjust to the global standards. Therefore the African youth needs to constantly update him/herself in the emerging issues in whatever field he/she/they dream of pursuing in order to be at the same level playing field of our competitors from other trade blocks. This can be easily implemented through various industrial attachments as well as incubation programs that we expect our countries and stake holders to implement with close collaboration within the AfCFTA framework.

Information is the current gold standard in the world we live in.We, the youth expect the establishment of a youth portal within the AfCFTA website, through this it will be easier for the youth populace to interact as well as access important information and quick links to various support systems to facilitate information and even feedback exchange within and out of the continent. At state level the youth expect visa as well as travel and tariff charges information to be provided so as to make it easy for synthesizing information in order to make decision making easy.

Cultural awareness will play a part in the success of the AfCFTA; one of the impacts of trade is intermingling of cultures. When people interact creation of new trends as well as attitudes arise. Becoming aware of our cultural diversity is an important aspect in promoting trade. Therefore cultural exchange programs need to become a mainstay as this will not only make it easier for the youth to acquire the soft skills required in the facilitation of trade between communities especially in the service industry. Therefore cultural exchange programs between institutions should be promoted both at national and community level. This will enable the youth to eventually tailor their products when trading with the target markets effectively as having prior knowledge about the culture, language and sociology of the target market will give our youths a head start when innovating ideas for trading cross border.

Furthermore the AfCFTA secretariat should come up with deliberate policies and best practices to ensure that a significant chunk of trade, services and opportunities within the AfCFTA go to the youth. For instance the tariff rates should be capped at a certain point for youth, women and persons living with disabilities. This will activate this particular groups to be more involved as well as incentivize the youth led startups willing to take part in the AfCFTA.

Leadership is a major factor when it comes to any representation. Articulations of youth issues are better communicated by people who understand them. Therefore it is imperative that youth inclusion is assured at all levels to facilitate the implementation of the AfCFTA.Therefore it should consider engaging the youth through establishing a youth commission within the leadership  as well as having positions exclusively for the young people. This will effectively provide a highway in expediting solutions to issues affecting the youth as well as cutting down on unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape involved. This will give the youth the confidence that their issues are handled effectively as their engagement has been assured at all levels.

Technology remains an under tapped resource in Africa even though social media, fintech as well as block chain technology are on the rise. At policy level there is no blueprint at the continental level. Most African youths are on social media therefore, the AfCFTA secretariat should take advantage of this platforms and scale up youth engagement after all getting feedback will be much faster and more efficient as well as urging member states to embrace technology to enable cross border trade to be much efficient. Social media engagement like webinars, online conferences as well as zoom meetings in this age of covid should be encouraged, this uptake will make the youths more knowledgeable and up to date on what is happening as far as the free trade is concerned.

Finally entrepreneurship is the backbone to the whole free trade area ambition. Just like any other skill, it is learnt.Therefore entrepreneural studies have to be embraced by the youth. This can be realized through the establishment of incubation centers as well as embracing more youths to do more industrial attachments at the tertiary level to gain those practical skills.Countries should also be encouraged to establish a youth fund to offer loans at low interest rates and grants to youth entrepreneurs in order to put what they have learnt to practice.Through this,the skills in the youths will be upgraded so that eventually there are more quality products in the market which eventually leads to upscaling of those small and micro enterprises that spur cross border trade that the AfCFTA is all about. This can also be realized through encouraging member states to establish more industrial parks and offer more skill oriented programs to the youths as well as encourage the mushrooming of startups and SMEs through reduced taxation especially for the youth run establishments. The goal being the eventual blow-up of these businesses, like they say all global businesses were once local.

The AfCFTA and youth inclusion are Siamese twins conjoined at the hip, for it to be realized the youth should be a driving force in the whole process. Therefore deliberate policies and resources should be channeled towards this group of people for the whole vision to be realized.

*AfCFTA-African continental free trade area.

*Fintech-Financial technology

*SMEs-Small to medium-sized enterprise