An African Multistakeholder Participation Framework for the African Continental Free Trade Area

An imperative for the realization of a continent-wide free trade area is that Africans are able to harness intra-African trade as a result of trade liberalization and its associated income and growth benefits. In order for this to occur, the various sectors of society that are deemed to benefit of the AfCFTA need to be involved in the process of conceptualizing, negotiating and setting up the AfCFTA. A major critique to poorly implemented trade integration processes of the past, has been the absence of adequate consultations with the various stakeholders that are affected by these processes, including parliamentarians, private sector operators, the academia and civil society at large. This chapter therefore looks at some of the recent participatory experiences in African regional integration processes, prior the AfCFTA. It identifies some of necessary elements for broad-based participation and outreach of stakeholders through consultations which would be important to include as part of the AfCFTA negotiations processes. It proposes a framework for participation, in an effort to provide the African people with a platform to engage in the creation of the AfCFTA through a consultative and advocacy process.