Tasked with tough job of revolutionising trade in Africa
Treasure Maphanga is clearly driven to deliver on the huge responsibility she has been given, writes African News Agency
SLIGHT in stature, but with a powerful drive, determination and sense of purpose, Treasure Maphanga is one of Africa’s most important women, with arguably the continent’s toughest job.
The economist from Swaziland is Director of Trade and Industry at the AU Commission, and is responsible for driving the establishment of a Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) which, if it succeeds, will revolutionise the way business is done in Africa.
The CFTA’s goal is to create a single continental market for goods and services, with free movement of business people and investments on the continent, and to create a single African customs union.
Maphanga’s job is to formulate an action plan to implement the CFTA, largely seen as a key driver of an AU Summit decision to double intra-African trade by 2022.
“For over two years, we have been eating, sleeping and dreaming continental free trade, working with regional economic communities, developing tactical studies and testing the political will to implement this project effectively. The credibility of Africa is on the line. The CFTA is a comprehensive framework that was not envisaged in the Abuja treaty. We said we will have it ready by 2017 and the challenge is for us to deliver on that promise,” Maphanga told the African News Agency this week.
The AU has been working with the continent’s top quality assurance institutions to help them draft the norms and standards needed and they have actively engaged the continent’s private sector, youth entrepreneurship leadership forums and women’s groups in a more structured manner, knowing the decisions they arrive at will go to the AU’s highest policy bodies.
“The over 1 billion people on this continent can no longer just be seen as a ‘market’ for the rest of the world, but must be a market for African people as well, to do business with each other. We need to start building a more integrated economic space for Africa and have more continental integration, whether it’s in leather, cotton, agriculture or information technology services,” said Maphanga. “If the arable land is in Africa, we are saying let’s not look at using it as purely a means of survival, but say food is big business.
“Our task is to organise the value chain, address the bottlenecks and create an economic structure that is more sustainable. Let’s not be dependent only on aid, but enhance our own production capability.”
Given the magnitude and importance of the work her team is undertaking, Maphanga is remarkably unassuming, and clearly driven to deliver on the huge responsibility she has been tasked with.
She will release the blueprint for the CFTA on the main agenda of the AU Summit in Joburg in June, with AU Commis- sion chairwoman Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma listing it as one of the summit’s key deliverables. Dlamini Zuma has introduced a strong sense of discipline, work ethic and goal-oriented processes in the AU. It’s an environment Maphanga, a former Young Global Leader at the World Economic Freedom, thrives in. Her team of 20, responsible for the AU’s trade and industry and mineral resources portfolio, operates on “sheer grit and determination”. Listening to their calm yet authoritative and capable leader, it’s clear this massive free trade project is not one that will be consigned to the scrapheap and shelved.
“For people on the ground, we are talking about the first stage of removing duties and tariffs in terms of cross-border trade.
“We are talking about reducing the bottlenecks, red tape and the challenges that come with doing business on the continent. It’s pragmatic to have Africa’s free trade areas come together, so the continent can have one customs union,” says Maphanga.
“We are not just talking about trade in goods, but also in services and harmonising investment… What confidence can we garner from having the AU play more of a role in economic matters affecting the continent as a whole and how do we reshape the engagement with the private sector, so that they are seen as the key drivers of this project? The benefits for them will flow in terms of increased economic opportunities, but it remains to be tested when it comes to real dollars and cents.”
The “African Passport” that Dlamini Zuma is looking to introduce to help business people travel freely in Africa would form part of the talks, Maphanga said.
“We want to facilitate trade among Africans, but also when doing business in other countries they should be adding value in the communities they trade in by creating jobs. We are looking at how we can support and enhance the production capacity of African brands and see more of an exchange of ideas, skills and capability among African products,” she said. “It is going to be a gradual process, but can we, for instance, see the coffee producers of Ethiopia link up with the services available in Uganda and have an East African brand that can penetrate the market? The continent’s information and communication technology sector is booming. How can we take the lessons learnt in Kenya and as a whole perhaps benefit from technology available in South Africa or Nigeria?”
Much of the research into creating the CFTA had already been done.
“We have done considerable work, conducting studies on the success of business process outsourcing in Senegal, the story of the growth of Ethiopian Airlines, the education services facilities available in Uganda and also the cultural services success in Burkina Faso. We’ve also looked at the success of the financial services sector in South Africa and the access there to mobile money, as well as the emergence of the financial services sector in Nigeria. We are looking at these case studies and seeing whether the lessons and best practice can be used across the continent.”
Many of the continent’s countries were not investing enough in skills needed to help people enter the business market, choosing rather to focus on formal education, Maphanga said.
“The creativity we found on the African continent is incredible, but they need that edge in coming up with business models and we have an important role to play in helping to create the conditions for them to succeed.”
We are talking about
the first stage of removing tariffs in cross-border trade