New ACET Report Urges Africa to Integrate to Accelerate Transformation
- The importance of integration to ensure economic transformation made clear during African Transformation Forum 2021
- Momentum established by the AfCFTA should be used to tackle common cross-border challenges, including ensuring productive employment, managing climate risks, and harnessing digital innovation
- Broader regional collaboration is key to realizing Africa’s potential across areas highlighted in the report
15 JULY 2021, ACCRA, GHANA: The African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) today launched its third African Transformation Report (ATR) exploring the critical need for African countries to pursue greater economic integration to transform the continent. Integrating to Transform, the pan-African policy institute’s third African Transformation Report (ATR), champions an economically transformed Africa that harnesses regional opportunities through heightened integration, increased collaboration, and visionary leadership.
The Report was unveiled during the 2021 virtual African Transformation Forum featuring leaders from both the public and private sector such as Mastercard Foundation and World Bank Group. The ATR urges African countries to work together beyond trade to accelerate transformation and improve lives by creating more jobs, enhancing digital innovation, and managing the impacts of climate change.
ACET Founder and President K.Y. Amoako commented: “The report highlights the critical need for African countries to confront key issues to allow economies to scale. Increased collaboration across Africa, especially through the delivery of regional public goods, will be critical to tackling shared challenges to successful economic transformation. Integrating to Transform demands visionary leadership at all levels that goes beyond national interests to pursue collective actions for the common good.”
The latest edition of the ATR is well-timed against the backdrop of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) coming into practice earlier this year, giving fresh impetus to the continent’s integration project and affirming the commitment by African countries to accelerate intra-African trade and boost Africa’s competitiveness in global markets.
Former President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf adds: “Making a success of the new African Continental Free Trade Area is one way to reinforce badly needed integration in Africa. This larger market will attract greater investments, boost productivity, provide better jobs, and improve human well-being, all of which support the continent’s economic transformation. Now is the time to reinforce the push for African integration, not just through trade, but also through greater collaboration to provide regional public goods. Only then will Africa see its economies transform and develop the leadership and institutions to build the Africa we want.”
As this year’s Report argues, deepening regional integration requires shifting the integration narrative from pursuing not just regional market integration but also increasing broader regional collaboration. An advancement on the second ATR released in 2018, the Report underlines the urgent need for countries to look beyond trade and markets to collaborate in delivering regional public goods such as transport corridors, free movement of people, well-managed river basins, cross-border digital connectivity, and systems to control future outbreaks of pests and disease.