Food Trade Coalition Holds First Meeting on Trade Investment Opportunities in Africa

Some participants in the meeting

The Food Trade Coalition for Africa hosted its first meeting to coordinate food trade investments and policy interventions across the continent.

Coalition Co-Chair Ziad Hamoui, in a hybrid meeting that seeks to tap into diverse perspectives, experiences and knowledge, said the meeting will serve as a platform to monitor and assess the track record of the food trade to define the work plan for the rest of the year while collecting feedback for better achievements.

He noted that with the combined strengths of key stakeholders, the Coalition would build a stronger consensus on food trade policy and increase policy coherence and predictability.

“Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, trade movements haven’t stopped, but people’s movements have. Therefore, the pandemic has taught us to start relying on our own local production. So, we hope to use this coalition as a platform to discuss trade issues, ”he said.

In a speech read on behalf of Trade and Industry Minister Alan Kyeremanten, he commended the coalition, the Alliance for the Free Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and other stakeholders for their tireless efforts to support the growth of African agriculture through building the agricultural sector and linking them to various regional and international markets.

The Minister urged African countries to engage in larger and more diverse agricultural trade regionally and globally to help boost productivity at all stages of the value chain to help transform African agriculture and to stimulate growth.

“Increasing intra-African agricultural trade also has the potential to improve food security by moving food surpluses to deficit areas and help stabilize local and regional food markets by making them less vulnerable to shocks,” he said. he explained.

He urged all stakeholders to target youth education and training with an emphasis on mentoring to enrich smallholder practices and knowledge, entrepreneurship and make agriculture more attractive to them.

The minister said that the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) would help provide enormous opportunities for the export and import trade of goods, and also enable businesses of all scales, which ‘they are large, medium, small or micro-enterprises.

However, he mentioned that some of the main obstacles to diversification included non-tariff measures, sanitary and phytosanitary regulations; specific technical regulations and rules of origin.

“Yet these issues have been addressed in some of the annexes to AFCFTA’s protocol on trade in goods,” Kyeremanten said.

He added that barriers would soon be removed at the continental level to strengthen the case for increasing the share of locally processed products in regional trade.

The minister said Ghanaian exports would be boosted, while investment and innovation would also be boosted to foster structural transformation and improve food security on the continent.

“The AfCFTA will enhance economic growth and export diversification and, above all, give new impetus and dynamism to Ghana’s economic integration into the African market,” he said.

He noted that while Africa’s agri-food trade faces several challenges, including productive capacity, non-compliance with standards and unstructured markets, the Food for Trade Coalition for Africa’s policy dialogue will help address some of the challenges. these challenges in agriculture.

“Effective actions are needed to promote gender-targeted interventions such as respect for human rights for gender equality and empowerment of women to facilitate their market of support linked to the local, national and regional food system.

Women represent on average 43% of the agricultural workforce in developing countries, ”added the Minister.

Mr Kyeremanten called on various stakeholders to support farmers and other small-scale actors to ensure they benefit from increased business opportunities.

Members of the Food Trade Coalition for Africa include representatives within the African and international community; regional economic communities, private organizations, research institutes, development agencies, universities and think tanks.