{"id":8488,"date":"2022-01-13T09:29:09","date_gmt":"2022-01-13T09:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/vera-songwe-championing-africa-trade"},"modified":"2022-01-13T10:03:37","modified_gmt":"2022-01-13T10:03:37","slug":"vera-songwe-championing-africa-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/vera-songwe-championing-africa-trade","title":{"rendered":"Vera Songwe: Championing Africa Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>Vera Songwe is Under-Secretary-General at the United Nations, and Executive Secretary at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Two years ago, in March 2019, Vera Songwe spoke to the Oxford Business School in the UK about the Africa Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA).<\/p>\n

She began by saying that two trends were creating a game-changing opportunity. \u201cThe first one is leadership change, and a coalition of leaders who are coming together to say that we can actually be different, we can actually have a continent that will carry the spirit of multilateralism forward.<\/p>\n

The second trend is the coalescing of these leaders around the role of trade and its role in the economic emancipation of the continent: \u201cWhat the leaders of the continent have decided to do is say we\u2019re going to take a bet on making ourselves one whole continent around the idea that is the African Free Trade Area Agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we talk about Africa, it is essentially 55 countries that are trying to trade with each other.<\/p>\n

We have 15 countries on the continent whose GDP is less than $5bn, Businesses face about 6.1% tariffs, and we have about 107 borders. \u201cThe DR Congo, for example, has nine neighbouring countries each with their own trade regimes.<\/p>\n

\u201d Songwe makes a convincing argument that trade is the key to unlocking Africa\u2019s economic potential.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is because we have done a lot of studies that show that trade actually builds nations, creates wealth, and trade adds value,\u201d she says. But the problem is that the continent, as balkanised as it is, has not been able to trade, with itself in particular.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you see,\u201d she explains, \u201cis that between 1990 and 2014, we had a lot of countries in the world that were diversifying their trading, but Africa didn\u2019t do as much.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have Senegal, Rwanda, South Africa, Mauritius, actually Uganda is also on that list, that succeeded in doing some amount of trade diversification, but not as much as we would like.<\/p>\n

The issue is that there are a lot of countries on the continent that are neither working towards better export diversification nor succeeding in improving the quality of the goods that they are producing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started by trying to understand what is happening,\u201d Songwe says, \u201cand why that was.<\/p>\n

\u201d What she has concluded is the importance of trade, and in particular trade diversification, is paramount.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two biggest economies on the continent, South Africa and Nigeria, are actually losing in export diversification. They are not trading as many goods as one would wish.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s okay if you\u2019re losing on the export diversification part, if you have intensified on quality and value addition. But they are not doing either. And that is the problem. \u201d<\/p>\n

Bearing in mind that she was speaking in March 2019, she quoted figures indicating that 70% of Africa\u2019s trade with the rest of the world is extractives, and only 30% of continental trade with the rest of the world is in industrial goods or services; yet on intra-Africa, 40% is extractives and 60% is manufacturing and the services industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s okay when you look at it just like that. And you say to yourself, \u2018okay, yeah, you know, they are trading more manufactured goods with themselves\u2019. \u201d<\/p>\n

But she has a far more ambitious vision for African trade \u2013 it is to develop intra-Africa trade so that the continent can join global value chains. \u201cAs a matter of fact, as we integrate regional value chains, the value added that we get when we then export is much higher.<\/p>\n

\u201cI give you an example, if you were producing cotton in West Africa and then selling it to Ethiopia, that then produces the material and sells it to overseas markets, we have actually added two pieces of value addition, before we export.<\/p>\n

And so the exports and the net revenue that we get on the continent are much higher than each one of us exporting individually. \u201cSo that is the secret, really, of the AfCFTA.<\/p>\n

It is to say, we have a lot of global value chains. But before you integrate into global value chains, we want to integrate regional value chains. It\u2019s much easier to integrate regional value chains.<\/p>\n

\u201d Eco-friendly trade In early February 2021, Songwe contributed to the virtual World Trade Symposium. She chose to emphasise the importance of sustainability. As she put it: \u201dThe AfCFTA is essentially creating one big single market.<\/p>\n

We are trying to create one single market because the biggest objective on the continent is to create jobs. \u201cIf we can create the right jobs, if we can ensure that those jobs are creating the value that is needed within the continent, then we\u2019re better off.<\/p>\n

\u201cStatistics have shown that.<\/p>\n

Globally, we have about 1.2 billion jobs in sectors such as farming, fisheries, forestry, and tourism, that depend on a healthy environment, and the renewable sector in the continent can create over half a million jobs in Africa by 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201d Songwe says that Africa holds one great advantage, going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not yet invested a lot in the transport infrastructure that we need for growth and development, which means, that we can do things differently, relying more on rail than trucks or aviation.<\/p>\n

\u201cEco-friendly trade will mean that we will focus more on renewables when we develop our energy.<\/p>\n

Africa has one of the largest reserves of hydro power, and huge potential for solar and wind power \u2013 as well as geothermal. \u201cEconomies just grow much faster when you\u2019re able to connect markets and cities. And so we believe that in the next five years there should be a huge infrastructure plan for Africa, to empower the AfCFTA.\u201d<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Lesotho<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. Vera Songwe is Under-Secretary-General at the United Nations, and Executive Secretary at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Two years ago, in March 2019, Vera Songwe spoke to the Oxford Business School in the UK about the Africa Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA). She began by saying that two trends […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":8487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,6,8,16],"tags":[242,233,246,245],"class_list":["post-8488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-files","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-africa","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-lesotho"],"yoast_head":"\nVera Songwe: Championing Africa Trade - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Vera Songwe is Under-Secretary-General at the United Nations, and Executive Secretary at the United Nations Economic Com ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/vera-songwe-championing-africa-trade\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Vera Songwe: Championing Africa Trade\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Vera Songwe is Under-Secretary-General at the United Nations, and Executive Secretary at the United Nations Economic Com ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/vera-songwe-championing-africa-trade\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-01-13T09:29:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-01-13T10:03:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/01\/img-61dff8dd16667.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"550\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"265\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/vera-songwe-championing-africa-trade#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/vera-songwe-championing-africa-trade\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Vera Songwe: Championing Africa Trade\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-01-13T09:29:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-01-13T10:03:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/vera-songwe-championing-africa-trade\"},\"wordCount\":960,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/vera-songwe-championing-africa-trade#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/01\/img-61dff8dd16667.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa\",\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Lesotho\",\"Lesotho\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"economy\",\"files\",\"homepage-english\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/vera-songwe-championing-africa-trade#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/vera-songwe-championing-africa-trade\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/vera-songwe-championing-africa-trade\",\"name\":\"Vera Songwe: Championing Africa Trade - 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