Mandela Washington Fellows to host maiden Abuja confab on trade, opportunities in AfCFTA

Mandela Washington Fellows to host maiden Abuja confab on trade, opportunities in AfCFTA
….Target 5m African youths for empowerment

Policymakers, young Nigerian and African start-ups in business and creativity fields are to converge on Abuja this month to discuss trade and strategic opportunities under the Africa Free Continental Trade Area (AfCFTA) for sustainable development.

The President of the Mandela Washington Fellowship Alumni Association in Nigeria (MWFAAN) , Farida Yahya, disclosed this on Friday at the unveiling of plans for the first ever Pan-African conference scheduled for Abuja for 1,000 young participants from 25 countries across Africa.

Described as the legacy conference, Yahya said it would commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Mandela Washington Fellowship, the brainchild of former President Barack Obama, to strengthen U.S.-African relations through mutual aid.

“This fellowship has supported 7,200 young people across 24 African countries to go to the U.S. every summer for six months, placed in different institutions across the U.S. to learn more about leadership, understand how foreign policy works, and to volunteer in U.S. communities for a cultural exchange,” she said.

Yahya said the alumni of the Fellowship in Nigeria established since 2015 are currently 678, spread across the 36 states of the Federation, including the FCT.

On the forthcoming conference on the theme: “Shaping the future of Africa through the Africa Free Continental Trade Area (AfCFTA) and Agenda 2063 of the African Union (AU)”, Yahaya said their objectives include creating a blueprint on how the alumni, which constitute just one percent of Nigeria’s youth population, would continue to advance the work of economic development across Nigeria and Africa.

Also, she said the conference would provide opportunity for participants to reflect on the impact of the Fellowship in the last ten years and how to consolidate on the gains with more stakeholders in the next ten years, to support at least five million more young people across Africa.

Besides, she said members would use the conference to bring young Nigerians and Africa closer to the power brokers to bring change in the AfCFTA.

“This conference will bring together all the three actors of the economy – government or policymakers, non-profit players or civic engagement sector, and startups or people in business and creativity fields, to dialogue with young people and actually map out a strategy on how to easily access the free trade zone to trade across the African continent and with the US partners for sustainable development,” she said.

“We are bringing these three people together to actually form a real working document on what needs to be done to change the conversation about trade in Africa.

The conference billed for November 20 and 21 would feature a a number of activities, including a pitch competition amongst the Mandela Washington Fellows to showcase all their works around startups and also things that would change their community.

Winners of the pitch competition would receive cash prizes supported by LEAP Africa, a non-governmental organization, while an agritech hackathon would also be held in partnership with Nile University, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and National Agency for Science and Engineering (NASENI).

With food insecurity still a major problem in most African countries, Yahaya said the agritech hackathon would allow participants to look at the agricultural value chain and proffer solutions.

“As our contribution to the solution towards the food insecurity and reduction of poverty and hunger, the agritech hackathon would engage young university students, pair them with farmers in the local communities to enable them come up with a solution that would make it easier for us to be able to save and reduce food waste from farm to table.

Apart from a high-level panel to discuss their success stories of the Fellowship and its impact, the conference, which would be declared open by Vice President
Centre Kashim Shetima, would feature the Senegalese President, Bashir Moufaye, and Gambian vice president as keynote speaker and special guest respectively.

Also expected to attend are the Minister of Youth in Ghana and his Moroccan counterpart as well as three high-level delegations from Zimbabwe, the Africa Union’s AFCTA secretariat in Addis Ababa, and Africa Export-Import Bank in Egypt.

One of the highpoints of the conference would be the unveiling of the Ubuntu Trade App, a digital platform that allows Mandela Washington Fellows to upload their profiles to be able to trade across Africa and with U.S. partners.

A workshop would focus on six key thematic areas, namely the importance of open governance for Africans; freedom of press and the importance of allowing people to tell stories of Africa without the risk of being jailed; healthcare and the importance of quality healthcare and mental health across Africa; creativity and entrepreneurship; youth and trade, and women/girls and how development affects them and the challenges.

By PRNigeria