6. Economic Stewardship Cluster

One of the biggest challenges that Africa has faced since coming out of the colonial era is that the economies of most African countries are structured as ‘extractive consumer’ economies to serve as commodity and consumer markets to the international world. The structure of the continents micro and macro-economic framework needs to be transformed so that Africa can fully leverage the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement. Various reports suggest that as a large, unified market of up to 1.2-billion people, the AfCFTA could attract up to $4-trillion in consumer spending and business investment; boost intra-African trade by 33%-52%, depending on the degree of tariff liberalisation; and generate a cumulative $3.4-trillion gain in GDP over the long term. The mandate of this cluster will include ensuring that this potential is realised on the continent. The functions of finance, trade and development, investment, entreprenuership development and SME support will be housed in this cluster. Functional economic areas like agriculture, mining, ocean economy will sit under this cluster.