BY JOHNMARK UKOKO
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has inaugurated a 14-member team to serve in its Trade and Industrial Development AdvisoryCouncil (TIDAC).
The AfCFTA Secretariat said that Prof. Oyebanji Oyelaran-Oyeyemika, Dr. Adeyemi Dipeolu and Jane Ezirigwe of Nigeria are part of the team.
Oyelaran-Oteyemika is the Special Advisor to the President of African Development Bank (AfDB) on industrialisation.
He is a globally respected leader in the field of development economics where he has contributed immensely to the social sciences of urbanisation and human settlement, Industrialisation and economic development.
Dipeolu is the Special Adviser to President Muhamnadu Buhari on Economic matters, while Ezirigwe is a research fellow at the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS), with research interest on food and agricultural laws, human rights and development.
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According to the statement, one of the core mandates of the AfCFTA agreement is the promotion of industrial development through diversification and regional value chain development and food security.
This is imperative given the low levels of investments in industrial production, which is also a major contributor to the low percentage of intra – African trade.
“African has 17 per cent of the global population and fastest growing middle class, but only account for 2.1 per cent of global trade and three per cent of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“It is against this background that the AfCFTA Secretary General, Wamkele Mane, convened a workshop to discuss and brainstorm on matters of trade and industrial development, which led to his proposal to set up the TIDAC.
“The council is to provide advice on trade integration and transformative industrialisation as part of the implementation of AfCFTA,” the statement reads.
It added that the recent summit of the Heads of State and Government of Africa in February 2022 endorsed the proposal.
Other members of council include a Senior Minister and Special Adviser to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Dr. Ariebe Ogubay; former South African Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr. Rob Davies and former Director of the Division on Africa and Least Developed Countries, Dr. Taffere Tesfachew.
Others are, former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Prof. Carlos Lopez; visiting professor of Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Dr. Celestine Monga; Ambassador Magda Shahin and Prof. Caroline Neube.
