Events
Programme
Overview
The International Conference on the Future of African Trade and the AfCFTA is an immersive two-day event that presents a diverse range of informative panels catering to various aspects of African trade. The Conference will bring together all key actors in African trade on a common platform to explore the complex angles implicated by trade.
General Panels
- The AfCFTA: Overview
- Trade in Goods & Services
- Implementation Issues
- Trade and IP
- The Way Forward
Thematic Panels
1. African Trade, the Environment & Climate Change
This panel will review the interlinkages between trade, the environment and climate change and explore ways of situating the AfCFTA within the framework of a sustainable environmental agenda.
2. African Trade & Labor & Human Rights
The trade and human rights panel will examine the intricate patterns in which trade implicates human rights-related concerns and how these can be managed and avoided where necessary during trade.
3. African Trade, the Banking and Financial System (Currency Conundrum & Settlement Systems in Africa)
This panel will review and provide answers to the estimated $5bn annual loss from forex disparities arising out of the diversity of currencies on the African continent and the use of the dollar medium in trade.
4. Corruption & Systemic Barriers to Trade
This panel is designed to take a fresh look at the problem of corruption as a barrier to free trade under the AfCFTA. Given that the elimination of tariffs is designed principally as a cost reducing stratagem, corruption imposes unintended costs that can fundamentally hamper that goal or objective.
5. Trade and Agricultural Policy: The Global Politics of Subsidies & Agriculture in Africa
This panel will consider the complicated subject of trade and agriculture including issues of policy structures such as subsidies and markets. While the subject of poverty and unemployment in Africa has been rather well documented and articulated, agriculture has been said to employ over sixty percent of the continent’s workforce.
6. Trade & Technology: Innovation and the Role of Blockchain and other Disruptive Technologies in Trade
This panel will consider the salient subject of the role of technology in trade. Rapid innovation in technology coupled with the integration of technology as a leveraging variable has meant that global trade appears to be on the verge of transformative change.
7. Tariff Concession & National Revenue Mobilization
This panel will be expected to take a deep dive into the relative merits or disadvantages of the removal of tariffs and strategies which can be used to cushion countries against the shocks of tariff concession under the AfCFTA.
8. Trade and the People: How to Bring the African People on Board
This panel will focus on how to ensure that the benefits and effects of the AfCFTA reach all Africans, particularly those from marginalized communities and also examine ways to increase awareness, education, and participation in the AfCFTA, as well as ways to address potential challenges and barriers to participation.
Register Today!
The UPSA Law School is delighted to be able to advance the frontiers of legal education and research through the hosting of the International Conference on the Future of African Trade and the AfCFTA.
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