A Virtuous Circle, Improved African Intra-trade, Enhanced

Agricultural Productivity and Vice-Versa

Africa is endowed with rich and diverse lands and waters. Because of this, it possesses
enormous agricultural potential. However, the full potential of its lands and waters has
always remained largely untapped. Consequently, widespread persistent poverty and
worrying food insecurity has plagued rural Africa for a long time now. In the face of all this,
agriculture remains the most important economic activity for the individual countries of
Africa, it contributes a significant portion of the GDP of all African countries in addition to
employing a large chunk of their working population. Fortunately, promoting intra-Africa
trade, wholly, allows realistic unlocking of agricultural potential in the continent for fast-
tracking continental wide development. Besides, a vibrant agricultural sector feeds back into
African intra-trade in a positive way/influence.
As an African leader, I will promote African intra-trade with the primary goal of unlocking the
huge agricultural potential in mind. I will do this by enabling the creation of critical success
factors for maximizing this potential by steering practical support foundations, trade
objectives and trade actions fostering sustainable agricultural development and production
growths. Such critical success factors include access to stable and adequate/large market,
reliable infrastructure, easy access to low-cost farm inputs and mechanization tools and a
universal availability of strategic services.
With all the above factors in mind promoting African intra-trade, begins and depends on the
establishment of a comprehensive foundational framework of a free-trade area in the entire
Africa and or its sub-regions to facilitate profound economic integration. Thank goodness this
kind of a free-trade area has already been established, AfCFTA1 agreement was signed in
March 21, 2018 and ratified on April 2019 by 22 countries thereby setting the agreement to
come into operational force/phase.2 As an African leader I will ensure my country completes
the ratification process of the agreement if not yet done so. Then, without delay I will lead the
efforts to operationalize processes necessary to realize the primary objectives of the
agreement. In the spirit of inclusivity, I will use multi-stakeholder dialogues to increase
participation in the process of aligning trade policies and regulations to support freer trade. I
will then proceed to further sensitization and advocacy for the agreement to everyone from
the political leaders to private sector business leaders and most importantly to the civil
society thus rallying together all the relevant stakeholders for the speedy and meaningful
implementation of the agreement. Creating a dedicated AfCFTA implementation unit in my
country will promote a faster achievement of a working free-trade area by expediting
negotiation processes within and outside the country to establish regional integration ties.
Furthermore, I will encourage my fellow African leaders to collaborate together and leverage
regional economic communities to strengthen the larger economic free-trade area.
Additionally, I will urge for their support of useful trade facilitation efforts, effective trade
policies and even trade-related infrastructures.
I will support the building of a pervasive infrastructure base. Improving current infrastructure
not only to support enhanced rural connectivity but also allow intercountry connectivity,
regional linking. This will facilitate effective and efficient logistics and distribution activities of
agribusiness and agricultural products within Africa. Moreover, this infrastructure developed
for intra-trade reversibly benefits the flow, distribution and storage of agricultural production
elements like farm inputs, fertilizers, hybrid seeds, agricultural implements etc. and enable
the availability of services that complement agricultural production such as banking services
and educational services.
Larger markets enable exploitation of economies of scale. A thriving African intra-trade will
expand access to large regional and continental markets for agricultural products and
agribusinesses. This will prompt an increase in agricultural activity and volume of individual
countries to satisfy the increased demand due to a larger market. Initially, the countries’
supply ability may not meet the demand – this will change as a result of a virtuous cycle
attained ultimately. Huge sales and trade will generate more revenue and income for the
countries and for individual agribusinesses and farmers respectively. I will put back the extra
revenue generated into expanding and building more supportive infrastructures to further
augment African intra-trade and doubly improve agricultural productivity in my country.
Furthermore, I will sensitize the now able farmers and agribusinesses – financially – to
expand their productivity and diversify their agricultural activities so as to satisfy the needs of
the large and more diverse market created by intra-trade.
Apart from improving productivity of basic agricultural commodities, I will also promote
trading of manufactured and processed goods. This will enable greater value addition to
basic agricultural activities allowing farmers to ultimately obtain more value from their
produce. I will do this by spear heading the financing and development of manufacturing and
processing industries in my country. And to support these industries I will invest in the
education sector locally to produce a skilled and knowledgeable workforce for the industries.
This will inevitably lead to the production of innovative and high-quality products that are
competitive enough to attract large demand from the intra-African trade import market and
even demand from the global market. On a larger scale, I will push for intercountry
collaboration for the development of larger agro-allied industries and complex regional
agricultural value chains.
Finally, I will boost trade in services within the African intra-trade to complement the above
efforts and boost agricultural activity. I will promote trade in services such as financial and
banking services, transport services, educational services, distribution services,
communication services and construction and related services. These services promote
regional integration efforts intrinsically, thus they will smoothen trade in all goods including
agricultural intra-trade. By enabling more knowledge transfer and indirectly factoring in the
primary production of agricultural commodities, their enhancement will ultimately boost
agricultural productivity. What’s more promoting cooperation among myself and other African
leaders to enhance trade in services will be key to advancing national and regional economic
development.
To end with, agriculture plays a crucial in the social and economic way of lives for the people
of Africa. Therefore, it is absolutely imperative that I as an African leader, carry out practical
measures to tap the enormous but realistic agricultural potential of the continent of Africa to
not only address the poverty and food insecurity facing my people but also better their living
standards.