AFRICA NEWS AGENCY
Interview Michael Kottoh
“THE PRIVATE SECTOR ULTIMATELY IS THE DRIVER AND BENEFICIARY OF THE AFCFTA” Michael Kottoh, Managing Partner of KONFIDANTS and Head of Research at the AfroChampions Initiative, provides an update on the Zlecaf implementation process through the actions AfroChampions has taken to support the process.
Last year you published the AfCFTA Year 0 report measuring African states’ commitments to implement key AFCFTA measures. What reactions did you receive to the report? Is another report being prepared for Year 1 and what is the value of conducting such exercise on a regular basis? The AfCFTA Year Zero Report basically sought to measure the level of the continent’s commitment and readiness for implementation of the AfCFTA. At the time of publication in May 2020, we found the level of both commitment and readiness of the continent as a whole to be very low - despite the spectacular speed at which the AfCFTA operationalisation process itself was unfolding. The report also revealed two main groups of countries. The first group was countries that are highly committed to the AfCFTA but poorly prepared for implementation. The
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second group was countries that have low commitment but have very high implementation capacity and readiness. The report generated a lot of discussion among key stakeholders – the African Union, member states, regional bodies, and the private sector. And these were the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic so there was a lot of debate over whether the Start of AfCFTA Trade – which was scheduled for July 2020 – should be postponed or not, especially in light of the low implementation preparedness and the travel and economic disruptions of the pandemic. The report brought a new perspective to this debate by arguing that both the low preparedness of countries and the pandemic were in fact reasons why the Start of Trade should not be postponed. We argued that countries would only speed up their AfCFTA preparedness if trade could begin. And that AfCFTA could be used as one of the continent’s weapons in its war against the pandemic – if member states member states could agree an initial start of trade focused on
