East Africa’s young people encouraged to embrace e-commerce and access export markets

THE International Trade Centre (ITC) has called on East Africa’s young people to embrace e-commerce and tap into global online sales worth $26 million as the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) gets off the ground in 2021.

ITC Executive Director Pamela Coke-Hamilton

“Online marketplaces could drive inclusive growth across Africa, with e-commerce likely to create as many as 3 million jobs by 2025,” Pamela Coke-Hamilton, ITC executive director, said to a forum taking place in Nairobi, Kenya, on 19 November 2020.

She told participants at the event, Trade Beyond Covid19: Unpacking the AfCFTA for East Africa, that ditching outmoded business models for e-commerce would drive intra-regional trade and attract benefits such as “opening markets to otherwise isolated rural communities, servicing Africa’s fast-growing consumer market, and offer women access to new business opportunities.”

Betty Maina, Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Industrialization Trade and Enterprise Development, said the Kenyan Government had “developed a draft National AfCFTA strategy that aspires to contribute towards national development by securing markets for goods and services within the African region.”

Maina said the AfCFTA’s efforts at leveraging digital technologies to boost intra-African trade and investment aligned well with Kenya’s information and communications technology capabilities and national priorities.

She said that prioritizing e-commerce would support Kenya’s efforts to build digital capabilities and integrate micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) into regional value chains.

“For the free trade area to work optimally, there are many technical issues to be worked out. Key among them is putting in place cross-border payment systems to allow countries to trade in their currencies rather than reverting to international payment systems,” she said.

UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi also emphasized the vital role of the free trade area to boost growth opportunities across the continent.

“How the AfCFTA facilitates the revival and growth of African small businesses will be key to its success as an engine for Africa’s economic renaissance,” he said.

The implementation of the AfCFTA in Eastern Africa could result in welfare gains of $1,8 billion, a boost to intra-African exports worth more than $1,1 billion and the creation of more than two million new jobs, according to the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and Trademark East Africa.

Coke-Hamilton said that the opportunities and challenges of e-commerce in Africa interplay with other policy issues. She called on the AfCFTA members to remove obstacles in the digital space with synchronized regulatory approaches that check the fracturing of African states by technology giants.

While digital trade offers an innovative tool for industrial leapfrogging and income convergence, some African countries lack the legal framework and enabling environment for digital trade to thrive under the AfCFTA, speakers said. Some African countries still grapple with a lack of adequate and affordable connectivity and thorny issues such as cybercrime and data privacy.

Sharing his perspectives bearing the experiences from the European Single Market, European Union Ambassador to Kenya, Simon Mordue said, “from our own experience in the EU we know that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can benefit greatly from a larger common market. This will be no different in Africa. SMEs will prove to become the continental engine of economic prosperity because of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area, positively impacting millions.”

With a global digital order gradually taking shape, Coke Hamilton said that young people and women in business needed to take note urgently of the disruption of old business models.

“E-commerce can lower entry barriers and help connect MSMEs with global markets and value chains by providing the services needed to facilitate their exports,” she said.

As a strong advocate of MSMEs and the economic empowerment of women and young people, Coke-Hamilton said ITC was well-positioned to support the AfCFTA. It plans to provide capacity building and advisory services that will enhance the continental business environment, strengthen national and regional trade support institutions, and improve the competitiveness of MSMEs and women and youth-led enterprises under its One Trade Africa programme.

Coke-Hamilton said that agribusiness, services and green technology sectors are core to the success of the AfCFTA, and these priorities were enshrined in the trade treaty. A key challenge to design digital solutions for African businesses and consumers remains using the AfCFTA.