African governments and trade-support institutions need to move beyond training small and medium-sized enterprises and connect them directly with buyers, finance, market intelligence and logistics providers to increase trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
“Training alone is not enough. Businesses need continued access to buyers, market intelligence, finance, logistics providers and commercial partners if they are to succeed beyond the workshop room,” Cynthia E. Gnassingbe-Essonam, Director of Private Sector Engagement and Communications at the AfCFTA Secretariat, said.
She was speaking at the opening of the AfCFTA SME Booster Initiative’s Southern Africa Regional Cohort in Gaborone, Botswana.
The initiative aims to build a pipeline of export-ready African businesses while strengthening business support organisations that help small companies access markets and expand across the continent.
The programme reflects a broader challenge for the implementation of the AfCFTA, which seeks to deepen intra-African trade by reducing barriers to the movement of goods and services across the continent. For SMEs, access to skills alone may not translate into exports without connections to customers, financing and supply-chain partners.
Gnassingbe-Essonam said the success of AfCFTA implementation should ultimately be judged by commercial activity rather than policies and frameworks alone.
AfCFTA implementation must ultimately be measured not only in policies and frameworks but also in businesses trading, partnerships being formed and transactions taking place.
The Southern Africa cohort is being implemented with support from the European Commission, Better Than Cash Alliance, United Nations Development Programme and International Trade Centre.
The initiative places SMEs and the organisations supporting them at the centre of efforts to translate the continental trade agreement into actual business transactions, with a focus on improving companies’ ability to participate in regional markets.
