At the margins of the forty first Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the African Union going down in Lusaka, Zambia, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat and Equity Group Holdings have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to deepen the financial integration of the African continent.
The partnership seeks to implement the AfCFTA Agreement and the AfCFTA Private Sector Strategy by means of the `Africa Recovery and Resilience Plan’, which focuses on acceleration of financial restoration and resilience in Africa, in a post-COVID 19 setting. The initiative is designed to showcase a framework for socioeconomic transformation for the folks of the African continent based mostly on 6 built-in pillars aimed toward catalysing a pure resources-led transformation of Africa, enhancing agriculture output, formalising extractive worth chains, and connecting these major sectors to international provide chains which can be damaged and require diversification and secured sourcing.
The two establishments will work on the personal sector financial restoration and resilience stimulus plan, which Equity has seeded with a USD 6 Billion fund specializing in the first sectors of meals and agriculture, extractives, manufacturing and logistics, commerce and investments, social impression, well being, and environmental investments, in addition to a expertise enabled financial system to speed up financial restoration and resilience of the African continent.
The partnership will amongst others, assist the creation of fifty million jobs by 2025 and 5 million SMEs will obtain loans to scale and develop, utilising instruments of the AfCFTA Agreement and create extra personal sector lending with an envisaged mortgage ebook to be directed to agriculture (30%), manufacturing (15%), MSMEs (65%). As the continent’s technical interface with Africa’s improvement stakeholders and improvement companions for realisation of accelerated regional integration, the African Union Development Agency-New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD) will collaborate with the establishments by means of numerous means, together with venture financing, commerce enhancement and fund mobilisation.
During the signing of the MOU, H.E. Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of the AfCFTA Secretariat famous that “The AfCFTA will ensure the continent is well positioned to overcome crises such as COVID-19 leveraging on the framework of the AfCFTA Agreement. Our partnership with the Equity Group is a valuable intervention for the African Continent, whereby we acknowledge that trade is going to enable our continent to accelerate economic recovery. With AUDA-NEPAD, we will also be able to deliver on our respective mandates through complementarity of our expertise, skills, purpose, and vision, by taking special consideration of the interests of micro-, small, and medium-sized enterprises, women-owned businesses, workers, and youth.”
Dr. James Mwangi, Equity Group Holdings Managing Director and CEO stated, “Today’s signing with the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat is a significant moment for recovery and resilience of the African continent and for the creation of wealth for our people. The growth opportunities which the AfCFTA Agreement affords SMEs are unparalleled in history, making trade and cross-border scaling a possibility for all eligible and interested businesses. Equity Group Foundation provides opportunities to transform lives and livelihoods and capacity building along six pillars which include Education and Leadership Development, Health, Food and Agriculture, Energy and the Environment, Financial Inclusion and Enterprise Development, and Social Protections which serve to leave no one behind in the recovery and resilience of the African continent” stated Dr. Mwangi.
About the African Continental Free Trade Area
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is without doubt one of the flagship tasks of Agenda 2063: The
Africa We Want and entered into power on 30 May 2019. It is a excessive ambition commerce settlement, which goals to carry collectively all 55member states of the African Union, masking a market of greater than 1.3 billion folks, with a complete scope that features essential areas of Africa’s financial system, resembling digital commerce and funding safety, amongst different areas. By eliminating obstacles to commerce in Africa, the target of the AfCFTA is to considerably enhance intra-Africa commerce, notably commerce in value-added manufacturing and commerce throughout all companies sectors of Africa’s financial system, at a possible of 52.3 p.c.
About Equity Group Holdings Plc.
Equity Group Holdings (EGHL) is a Pan-African monetary companies with an asset base of almost USD $7 billion. With over 14.5 million clients, the Group is without doubt one of the greatest banks in buyer base in Africa.
Since 2008, the Group’s company basis, Equity Group Foundation (EGF), has delivered humanitarian packages in Education and Leadership, Food and Agriculture, Social Protections, Health, Clean Energy and the Environment, and Enterprise Development and Financial Inclusion to hundreds of thousands of Africans. EGF has a networked well being care supplier, Equity Afia which has been supporting COVID-19 reduction efforts. Equity was based in Kenya in 1984 because the Equity Building Society.
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