Paper/Proposal Title

Rights-Based Collaborative Approaches for Gender-Responsive Financial Inclusion in the Implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) for Sustainable Development

Presenter/Author Information

Philip A. Olayoku, University of IbadanFollow
Kingsley Obi Omeihe, University of the West of ScotlandFollow
Gloria Mkushi, InterDev ConsultingFollow
Uiy Lawani, Marshall UniversityFollow

Location

Virtual

Start Date

November 2023

End Date

November 2023

Keywords

Financial Inclusion, African Continental Free Trade Area, Sustainable Development

Abstract

At its 18th Ordinary Session in 2012, the African Union adopted the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) among 54 Member States (approximately 1.3bn people), allowing free movement of people, goods and services and removing tariffs by up to 90% on goods over a 10 year period for the least developed countries. Designed to leverage collaborative policies, economize production, infrastructure development, information sharing and financial and market integration, if successful, AfCFTA will achieve a GDP of ca. US$3.4bn. In June 2022, the World Bank projected that women’s wages would rise by 11.2% due to industrial expansion. 53% of Africa’s population are women, necessitating prioritization of egalitarian political, institutional, social and financial inclusion when applying the AfCFTA. Equal stakeholding and accountability for policy implementation can only be achieved if development finance instruments and policies mainstream inclusion of vulnerable and marginalized populations, particularly women. This panel will engage the stakes of policy makers, academics, financial experts and development practitioners to explore the potential of enshrining a justiciable Pan-African framework for inclusive policy implementation amongst AfCFTA signatories. The protocol for free labor migration and moving the continent towards more valuable production through the creation of visa-free zones will be examined focusing on gender responsiveness. In particular, the context of women’s vulnerability in conflict and/or post-conflict circumstances would necessitate specialized legal provisions in order for the AfCFTA to create sustainable trade corridors. We will assess how intra-continental bilateral trade relations can be brokered to boost income to US$450bn in the next decade - void of neocolonial interference – and realize the goal of lifting 30 million Africans out of extreme poverty, prioritizing women’s access to local, regional and bilateral development finance; as well as what measures could be taken to manage the cultural and language barriers to trade across Lusophone, Francophone and Anglophone Africa.

Author/Speaker Biographical Statement(s)

Philip Ademola Olayoku serves as the Coordinator of the West African Transitional Justice Centre (WATJCentre) and is the Chair od Marcel Advisory’s Think Tank. He is a Senior Research Fellow of the Institut Francaise de Recherche en Afrique (IFRA-Nigeria) at the University of Ibadan. He recently served as a consultant on the UNDP Anticorruption Initiative project and on the Media and Terrorism Project for the Centre for Journalism, Innovation and Development (CJID - formerly PTCIJ). He has also served as an expert for the African Union Commission on the validation of the African Union Transitional Justice Policy (AUTJP) guide. He has a PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Ibadan, where he also taught as an adjunct at the Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies and the Cultural and Media Studies Programme. He has published on security issues in the African Security Review, Digital Policy Studies, African Notes and the African Journal on Conflict Resolution. He is passionate about inclusive economic policies and recently co-founded the Centre for Research of African Digital Policy and Innovations as a springboard for inclusive financial engagements in the digital age. Dr King Omeihe is an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and also the President of the Academy for African Studies. His previous posts include Head of Division at the University of Aberdeen, Founding Director of the Entrepreneurship Programme (University of Aberdeen), Director of the Global Online MBA Programme (University of Aberdeen), Head of the Graduate Apprenticeship Programme at Edinburgh Napier University and Executive Administrator at the Centre for African Research on Enterprise and Economic Development. He is a Senior Economic Advisor on African Economic Policy at the Marcel House. He received his diploma from the University of Cambridge, his MBA from the University of Aberdeen and PhD from the Doctoral College of the University of the West of Scotland. Gloria Mkushi (Panelist) is an International lawyer, specialised in international development and intergovernmentalism, having trained in European Union law in The Netherlands. A Southern African, she was worked on Global-North partnerships and relationships within the gender-development axis, the rights of women and children’s development, peace and conflict specifically within the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and several rights-based, children’s NGOs. Before establishing Interdev Consulting in Nairobi, Harare and The Hague, she worked for the COMESA regional development finance institution, the Trade and Development Bank. Uyi Lawani has been a university teacher since 2006. He is currently an Associate Professor of Strategic Management in the Lewis College of Business at Marshall University. He has previously been an Assistant Professor of Business at Concordia University, Wisconsin. He earned a PhD in Strategy and Economics as a Toulouse Fellow at the University of North Texas. He holds an MBA in Finance from East Carolina University and a BSc in Microbiology from the University of Benin in his native Nigeria. He started his career as a soldier in the Nigerian Army, after which he worked as a Research and Development Chemist in UACN which was Nigeria’s biggest business conglomerate at the time, and then as a banking executive in a couple of Nigerian banks. Dr. Lawani’s research interest covers corporate governance and organizational performance at the micro level, and developmental finance and economics at the macro level. He is a lifelong learner and is always excited about the discovery of new knowledge and ideas.