Empowering women and boosting livelihoods through agricultural trade: Leveraging the AfCFTA, Ghana

In November 2022, 56 women entrepreneurs gathered in Accra, Ghana, for a three-day training on seizing business opportunities in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement. Topics covered included an overview of the agreement, business registration and formalization, food safety and sanitary requirements for export, trade facilitation tools, how to deal with harassment and corruption, food packaging, and more. The capacity building initiative is part of Phase I of the joint FAO-International Trade Centre (ITC) programme Empowering women and boosting livelihoods through agricultural trade: Leveraging the AfCFTA (EWAT). The joint programme promotes women’s readiness to engage in negotiations around the AfCFTA, as well as their access to capacity building and higher-productivity activities, capitalizing on the new opportunities in regional trade created by the agreement. The AfCFTA spans over 54 countries and supports a market of over 1.4 billion people with a combined gross domestic product of USD 2.5 trillion and growing. While the new free trade area presents a ground-breaking opportunity to boost Africa’s share of global trade and achieve the goals of Agenda 2063, such objectives can only be accomplished if the implementation of the agreement is fair and inclusive. Currently, women in business in Africa face challenges related to working in the informal sector, complying with legal requirements, and accessing market information, training and finance, among other issues. The FAO-ITC EWAT programme is a solid representation of FAO’s ongoing efforts to mainstream gender equality in regional agricultural sector policies and programmes while promoting concrete opportunities for boosting women’s livelihoods and capacities in value chains and agribusiness in the continent. The programme also builds on ITC’s SheTrades Initiative. The SheTrades Initiative works to foster more inclusive business and policy ecosystems and increase the competitiveness of women entrepreneurs and women producers and connect them to markets. For more information, contact [email protected].

07/03/2023