The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), conformed by 54 of the 55 African countries, is the first step to achieving the objective of a continental single market. With a journey that started in March 2018 in Kigali, Rwanda, when the AfCFTA Agreement was opened to the signature, significant milestones have been registered that include 47 ratifications of the Agreement to date, and recent endorsement of the Competition Policy, Investment, and Intellectual Property Rights Protocols, by the 36^th AU Ho/SG Summit on the 19^th of February, 2023. This landmark agreement offers significant promise for the continent's transformation and will open up new economies of scale and create stronger foundations for economic diversification.

The AfCFTA is expected to boost intra-African trade, promote structural transformation, and generate significant employment opportunities in Africa, especially for women and young people. Despite the high political momentum and the strong economic rationale, realizing the AfCFTA will require strengthening institutional capacities to complete negotiations and to implement and honour the agreements, with the active involvement of the private sector and effective cooperation between stakeholders at the continental, regional, and national level.

Description of the TE TAF

The Team Europe Technical Assistance Facility to support the AfCFTA and Continental Economic Integration (TE TAF) seeks to contribute to the African economic integration agenda through mainly the realisation of the AfCFTA. It has two specific objectives:

1. Secretariat – with a focus on strengthening the institutional capacity to coordinate negotiations, as well as provide oversight on the implementation of the Agreement
2. To be an efficient, reactive, and flexible mechanism to provide answers to the needs of the African Union (AfCFTA Secretariat, AUC, and some AU Specialized agencies), RECs, AU Member States and other potential continental partners and regional private sector organisations, that are working on fostering the AfCFTA and economic continental integration.

The AU Commission, specifically the Department of Economic Development, Trade, Tourism, Industry and Mining (ETTIM), plays a key role in the implementation of the AfCFTA, providing continental trade, and industry policy oversight and coordination responsibilities, to drive harmonization of legal instruments across member states. 

Output 2 under TE- TAF, focuses on; The Capacity of AUC to advance Continental Economic Industrial Policies complementary to the AfCFTA. In line with this Output, ETTIM has been driving the implementation of key industrialisation and trade policy frameworks that include the Accelerated Industrial Development of Africa (AIDA), AU SME Strategy, Africa Union Commodity Strategy, the Boosting Intra - African Trade (BIAT), and the Africa Mining Vision.

To date, the African Minerals Development Center (AMDC), which began the Phase II of its implementation in May 2022, has also progressed towards its journey to be a specialized agency of the African Union, under the leadership of the Department. With 4 ratifications, ahead of the 15 required for the AMDC to become a fully-fledged AU specialised agency, there is a need ETTIM to embark on initiatives to raise awareness across member states.

During the period November 2022 to January 2023, an ETTIM – TAF 2023 Joint Work Programme has been developed and is now under implementation.  

Justification

Building upon the AUC-ETTIM’s current workflow, and focusing on the 2023 TAF Work Programme, the Department has identified the need for enhanced visibility on their continental work. This builds upon earlier work on programmes to enhance awareness of the Department's continental industrial and trade policies, which culminated in the hosting (in collaboration with the GIZ) of the media training session themed, “Building Media Awareness on the Accelerated Industrial Development for Africa (AIDA) related strategies: Industrial Policy Literacy Capacity Building Session for Business/Economic Journalists” during the period 25^th to 27th September 2019, at the AUC Headquarters, Addis Ababa,  Ethiopia.

The programme, back then benefitted about 30 journalists drawn from the five regions of the continent. To date most of these journalists have remained a vital resource for the ETTIM Department, being available on tap to provide coverage during strategic events such as the Africa Industrialisation Week (Aiw2019-2022) celebrations, AU Summit, Africa Integration Week celebrations, among other key events. That aside, positive communication, and news articles (social, electronic, print, etc.), have been generated on continental subjects such as the AfCFTA with a positive impact on awareness.

One of the key resolutions of the Workshop was to develop a Communication Strategy for the ETTIM to enhance visibility and awareness of the Department’s work on trade and industrialisation in the continent. The ultimate objective of the strategy is to enhance understanding of the AU's trade policies and programs among key stakeholders, including Member States, private sector players, civil society organizations, development partners, and the Media, to boost prospects for implementation, and harmonization of key policy statutes. The Strategy would also provide tools that ETTIM could leverage as the Department initiates programmes to position itself to effectively communicate programmes, including stakeholder engagement across its programming space.

This will no doubt, improve knowledge sharing on the key strategies on industrialization under execution by the AUC, to mark the initial steps towards enhancing image as well as accurate reporting on the continent’s development agenda.  That aside, it was also agreed to set up a Communication Desk in the ETTIM to coordinate the awareness drive, whilst also serving as a focal point for all departmental communication. Informed by this background, and the need to enhance the visibility of the activities of ETTIM, with more emphasis on continental trade and industrialisation policy framework, the Department seeks to engage a Communication Consultant/Expert on a long-term basis, to deliver the strategic activities described above.