Nigeria, Six Other Countries Selected For Implementation Of AfCFTA Four Year Fishery Programme
Princess-Ekwi Ajide
Seven countries have been announced as beneficiaries of a four-year fishery programme to be implemented by the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA, Secretariat, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation and TradeMark Africa.
The programme will enable over 240,000 work opportunities and boost trade in fish and fish products with about $100 million by the year 2028.
The announcement was made during the 14th Meeting of the Council of Ministers responsible for Trade in Zanzibar and the benefitting countries are Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Zambia, Nigeria and selected Island states for the programme tagged “Women and Youth Economic Empowerment in Fisheries” to enhance the participation of women and youth in fisheries in line with the adopted AfCFTA Protocol on Women and Youth in Trade.
The programme will address structural challenges women and youth face when participating in the fisheries value chain and offer training, facilitate access to markets and finance, catalyze supply chain linkages, create digital solutions, simplify trade regimes, enhance compliance to standards, and enable streamlined cross-border market access.
Africa’s fisheries sector plays a major role in food security and the economic well-being of millions of households, this sector, the World Bank notes employs at least 12 million people with a majority of them, women involved in processing, marketing, and post-harvest processes.
Wamkele Mene, of the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA, said while the AfCFTA presents a unified preferential market opportunity, women and youth may not automatically benefit from such prospects if they are not adequately supported hence the AfCFTA presents huge opportunities while fostering entrepreneurship and job creation in a market of 1.4 billion people.
The AfCFTA’s Protocol on Women and Youth in Trade has been developed to foster inclusive economic development by eliminating barriers to trade for women and young people in Africa and the programme aligns with AFCFTA’s vision of bringing the marginalised group along to increase intra-Africa trade in “Creating One African Market” to ensure prosperity for all Africans.
For the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of TradeMark Africa, Ms. Allen Sophia Asiimwe, the start of the programme is an important step forward in its support for inclusive trade, economic empowerment, and sustainable jobs creation for women and youth in Africa’s fisheries sector as it will address the structural barriers which are unique to women and young people in the fish value chain to enhance the participation and competitiveness of programme participants in the sector.
