Supporting the African Union Technical Workshop and Revision of the Strategy to Diversify and Grow Africa’s Exports

The Project at A Glance

Africa is a dynamic continent with unique characteristics and unparalleled challenges but also huge untapped potential for trade and economic growth. International Economics developed a Continental Strategy to Diversify and Grow Africa’s Exports in 2024, which focused on strengthening Africa’s exports to the rest of the World. However, considering new opportunities emerging through the AfCFTA, International Economics is supporting the African Union in facilitating a Technical Workshop and updating the Strategy based on the feedback received.

The project was funded by the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (Spanish: Fundación Internacional y para Iberoamérica de Administración y Políticas Públicas, F.S.P. – FIAP).

What We Found

The 2024 Continental Strategy on Diversification and Growth for African Exports provides a framework for building a more diversified and competitive export base, initially centred on integration into global value chains through four strategic pillars and eight priority export sectors. While outward-looking in focus, the Strategy now needs to better reflect the growing importance and resilience of intra-African trade, which is more diversified and likely underestimated due to informal flows. With the AfCFTA creating new opportunities through regional value chains, services liberalisation, and the rapid expansion of e-commerce and digital trade, the Strategy required updating to integrate these transformative trends. In this context, International Economics is revising the Strategy to strengthen intra-African trade dimensions, incorporate the potential of services and digital trade, and ensure its finalisation through an inclusive consultative process.

Our Strategy and Impact

This assignment focuses on reviewing and refining the Strategy by integrating additional stakeholder perspectives on the role of regional value chains and facilitating a consultative workshop to gather stakeholder inputs and technical feedback for its finalisation. Our team will review the Strategy and relevant AU frameworks to ensure a balanced reflection of intra- and extra-continental trade opportunities. The Team will then prepare and facilitate the Consultative Workshop and update the Strategy based on stakeholder inputs, including an implementation roadmap and monitoring framework. The team will also assist in preparing and presenting materials to the African Union Commission policy organs as needed.

Our Core Solutions

As businesses seek to expand operations into new markets, the need to explore global supply chains and understand the international regulatory framework becomes crucial to competitively expand into new product/service lines and markets, reduce costs, increase revenue and reduce portfolio risks.

At International Economics, we build tailor-made strategies for both import and export-oriented business solutions. We carry out sensitivity analysis and prepare detailed resource scheduling and standard performance dashboards to track the implementation process and financial ratio performance of your products and services. We can also work on corporate leadership and change management strategy. Finally, we develop the analytics and risk matrices and use our cognitive computing insights to update these in real-time.