Despite that fact that trade plays an important role in the creation of wealth, jobs and improving the standard of living, the share of the African Continent in global Trade averages only between 1% and 3%, an indication that the continent is not taking full advantage of the wealth generated by world Trade.
And that is why, the Economic Community of West African States ECOWAS under its Trade Facilitation West Africa Project(TFWA) supported GIZ through a multi-donor initiative has converged 25 journalists from West African Anglophone Countries including Ghana, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Nigeria and Liberia for a five days seminar being held in Lagos, Nigeria aimed at enhancing their capacities on effective strategies to trigger improved advocacy and communications efforts towards ensuring that trade facilitation instruments impact positively on the population
Kolawole Sofola – Acting Director of Trade, ECOWAS Commission explained at the opening session of the training that even though the West African region is marked by the acceleration of the implementation of certain integration policies like the new Customs Code, introduction of new ETLS text, theWTO trade facilitation agreement and the African Continental Free Trade Agreement by most ECOWAS member states, the implementation of these policies should draw the attention of political authorities of the region and actors and stakeholders towards renewed interest and commitment in deepening trade and regional integration.
Unfortunately, he narrated, the general observation is that there is a gap in terms of knowledge capacity on the part of these Non-State Actor stakeholders, particularly the media practitioners to deepen understanding, advocacy techniques,outreach principles, publicity and communication strategies that are key for holding public actors accountable to their commitments to the smooth implementation, monitoring and evaluation as well as positive outcomes of these trade instruments to the benefit of the population.
Underscoring the significance of the media in ensuring public awareness and their buy-in for government actions as well as provide the necessary checks-and-balance on government, he reckons that the role of media in the area of Trade Policy and Trade related interventions has been very limited in the West African sub region due to their lack of awareness on issues and topics relating to international trade, thereby affecting their ability to effectively provide the much needed awareness to the business community, especially small and medium enterprises.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) established in 1975 aspires towards a deeper economic integration with the adoption of a number of instruments including the ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Schemes (ETLS), the Common External Tariff (CET), and other programs and initiatives relating to Trade Promotion; Trade Facilitation; Negotiation and Policy formulation.
With the entry into force in 2019 of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the commencement of trading under the AfCFTA in January 2021, the continent ushered in a new era in its economic transformation process with the biggest free trade area in the world in terms of the number of countries whohave signed the Agreement. “To date, 54 out of 55 African countries are signatories of the Agreement including all ECOWAS Member States. 13 of our 15 Member States have ratified the Agreement with the 2 countries (Liberia and Benin) working towards ratification”, he said. The Agreement, he furthered, will enable State Parties to access a larger market of an estimated of 1.3 billion people to utilize their comparative advantages and boost their economic growth.