A NEW DAWN?

With the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement coming into force on July 1, the African Union may finally mean business.

- Godfrey Mutizwa

FIFTY SIX YEARS AFTER ITS founding, the organization created to unite Africa’s economies has firmly fixed its gaze on economic integration, this time is driven by its private sector.

At the 30th anniversary of the Africa Industrialization Day in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, last November, the African Union’s Trade Commissioner Albert Muchanga was unequivocal about the agents of industrialization the continent seeks and the role they will play in the advancement of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

“The key driver of industrialization will be the private sector,’’ Muchanga said as he welcomed participants from the private sector, donor agencies, and governments to the Africa Industrialization Week which is now an annual event bringing together all stakeholders in the drive to increase Intra African trade. “Business should welcome this.’’

Since its formation as the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the continental body has largely been a political organization with its annual summits and events, the preserve of heads of state, diplomats, government bureaucrats and journalists covering the event.

Even though the founding fathers, including Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, were mindful of the need to integrate Africa’s disparate economies, the OAU was on 25 October 1963 established to eradicate colonialism and neo-colonialism through political unity as African countries became independent.