The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), signed by 54 of the 55 African countries, is the first step to achieve the objective of a continental single market. The AfCFTA is expected to boost intra-African trade, to promote structural transformation and to generate significant employment opportunities in Africa, especially for women and young people. Despite the high political momentum and the strong economic rationale, realising the AfCFTA will require strengthening institutional capacities to complete negotiations and to implement and meet the obligations of the agreements, with the active involvement of the private sector and effective cooperation between stakeholders at continental, regional and national level.

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. The TE TAF is meant to be an efficient, reactive and flexible mechanism to answer 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, working on fostering the AfCFTA and economic continental integration.

Funded by the EU, Agence Française de Development, the German Ministry of Development Cooperation (BMZ) and Sweden, the Team Europe Technical Assistance Facility will be implemented by GIZ, Expertise France, and FIAPP under the guidance of the AfCFTA Secretariat.

Ethiopia is among the eight countries getting support from Programme Support to AfCFTA at the national level. Ethiopia ratified AfCFTA in March 2019 and the country is also preparing the required documents such as offers for trade in goods and trade in services while closely consulting with the relevant stakeholders at the national level. At the same time, preparations are underway for Phase II negotiations and implementation of commitments under AfCFTA.

For 2022, one of the support areas requested by the Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration was the preparation of an AfCFTA training manual that the Ministry can use to train its stakeholders. The Ministry’s stakeholders in the negotiation and implementation of AfCFTA include government agencies, private sectors, civic organizations, academic institutions, media and international organizations. The manual will be prepared in collaboration with the Ministry’s training department and will be used to deliver training on the negotiation and implementation of AfCFTA by tailoring it to the needs of the stakeholders receiving the training. The Ministry’s stakeholders are diverse and have varying levels of understanding or proximity to the AfCFTA Agreement. Therefore, the manual is expected to accommodate training modules for people with varying levels of understanding of the topic.