Empowering Women & Youth: The Key to Africa’s AfCFTA Digital Trade Success

As Africa implements the world’s largest free trade area by number of countries, a critical question emerges: Who will truly benefit? Patricia Obo-Nai, CEO of Telecel Ghana, argues that the success of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) hinges on a deliberate, large-scale strategy to equip women and young people with the digital, financial, and trade competencies needed to navigate and thrive in the new digital economy. Her call, made at the 2026 Africa Prosperity Dialogues, shifts the focus from mere market access to human capital development as the non-negotiable foundation for inclusive, shared prosperity.

Introduction: The AfCFTA Promise and the Inclusion Gap

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which officially commenced trade in 2021, represents a historic opportunity for the continent. By creating a single market for goods and services, it aims to boost intra-African trade, stimulate industrialization, and foster economic integration. The potential is immense: the AfCFTA could lift 30 million people from extreme poverty and raise incomes by 7-9% by 2035, according to World Bank estimates. However, realizing this promise requires more than tariff reductions and policy harmonization. It demands the active and equitable participation of Africa’s largest demographic groups—women, who constitute the majority of informal cross-border traders, and youth, who represent over 60% of the continent’s population.

Patricia Obo-Nai’s address at the Women Prosperity Dialogue, a component of the Africa Prosperity Dialogues 2026 in Accra, framed this imperative clearly. She emphasized that the AfCFTA Protocol on Women and Youth in Trade is a groundbreaking document that explicitly aims to move beyond opening markets to preparing people to benefit from them. The central challenge, she noted, is a profound gap in awareness, skills, and access to the very “innovation tools”—digital platforms, fintech solutions, and e-commerce logistics—that are becoming essential for modern trade.

Key Points: A CEO’s Prescription for Inclusive Digital Trade

Based on her remarks, the core recommendations for policymakers, the private sector, and development partners can be distilled into several actionable pillars:

1. Prioritize Strategic Investment in Digital and Financial Literacy

Obo-Nai stressed that digital literacy and financial literacy are no longer optional extras but fundamental trade enablers. For women in the informal sector—who dominate cross-border trade in agriculture and textiles—these skills are critical for using mobile money, accessing digital marketplaces, managing e-payments, and understanding digital contracts.

2. Launch Large-Scale, Gender-Responsive Skills Programs

She highlighted the need for programs that combine practical, hands-on training (coding, robotics, digital design) with an explicit goal of achieving high female participation. The Telecel DigiTech Academy and the partnership with Ghana’s One Million Coders Programme, targeting 70% female participation, serve as a private-sector-led model for building a future-ready talent pipeline.

3. Address Specific Regulatory and Operational Barriers

Meaningful participation is blocked by practical hurdles. Obo-Nai cited multiple SIM card regulations, mobile money transaction limits, complex data protection laws, and burdensome cross-border compliance requirements as immediate barriers that disproportionately affect small-scale, women-led enterprises.

4. Embed Skills Development into National AfCFTA Strategies

The inclusion of women and youth must be a core, funded component of every nation’s AfCFTA implementation plan, not an afterthought. This means integrating trade, digital, and financial education into national curricula and vocational training systems.

5. Design Private-Sector Solutions That Meet People “Where They Are”

Businesses must develop products and services—like Telecel’s “Women in Business” proposition offering connectivity, visibility, and market access—that address the specific constraints (capital, digital access, networks) faced by women and young entrepreneurs in the real world.

Background: The AfCFTA, Its Protocols, and Africa’s Digital Divide

The AfCFTA’s Ambitious Framework

Negotiated under the African Union, the AfCFTA aims to create a single market of 1.3 billion people with a combined GDP of over $3.4 trillion. It covers trade in goods, trade in services, investment, intellectual property, and competition policy. A landmark achievement is the Protocol on Women and Youth in Trade, which recognizes that removing tariffs is insufficient if structural inequalities prevent half the population from trading. It commits state parties to eliminate discriminatory laws, improve access to finance, and enhance capacity-building for these groups.

The Stark Reality of Exclusion

Despite the protocol’s intent, the baseline is challenging:

• Informal Cross-Border Trade: An estimated 70-80% of cross-border trade in Africa is informal, with women representing up to 90% of this sector in some regions. These traders operate with limited capital, no formal contracts, and high vulnerability to harassment and confiscation.
• Digital Gender Gap: According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Africa has the widest digital gender gap globally. In 2023, only 37% of women in Africa were using the internet, compared to 45% of men. This gap is wider in rural and low-income areas.
• Youth Unemployment: Africa’s youth (15-24) face an unemployment rate more than double that of adults. Many lack the technical and soft skills demanded by the modern digital economy and trade sectors.
• Access to Finance: Women entrepreneurs face a $42 billion financing gap in Africa. Youth and women are often excluded from formal credit systems due to lack of collateral, credit history, or financial literacy.

Analysis: Deconstructing the Barriers to Participation

Obo-Nai’s call to action points to a complex web of interconnected barriers that must be tackled simultaneously.

The “Innovation Tools” Deficit

The term “innovation tools” encompasses the digital infrastructure and platforms enabling modern trade: e-commerce websites (like Jumia, Kilimall), digital payment systems (M-Pesa, mobile money), logistics and supply chain tracking apps, and online marketplaces for services. Lack of access to these tools stems from:

• Infrastructure Gaps: Unreliable internet, high data costs, and poor electricity in rural areas.
• Awareness and Trust: Many women and small traders are unaware of available digital tools or distrust them due to past scams or complexity.
• Skills Mismatch: Even with a smartphone, the skills to create a product listing, manage online customer inquiries, or use digital financial services safely are lacking.

The Regulatory Maze

Obo-Nai specifically mentioned multiple SIM regulations. Many African countries, citing security concerns, have implemented mandatory SIM card registration and, in some cases, limits on the number of SIMs an individual can own. While well-intentioned, these policies can severely impact small business owners who use multiple phones/SIMs for different operational purposes (e.g., separating personal and business calls, managing different supplier networks). Mobile money limits on transaction volumes or values directly cap the scale of business that informal traders, especially women, can conduct digitally. Navigating 54 different national data protection and privacy laws (like Ghana’s Data Protection Act or Kenya’s Data Protection Act) under the AfCFTA’s digital trade protocols is a daunting compliance task for a small enterprise.

The Informal Sector Conundrum

The vast majority of women and youth in trade operate informally. This status itself creates a barrier: informal businesses have no legal identity, no formal accounting, and no access to formal finance or trade support programs designed for registered SMEs. Transitioning to formality is often costly, bureaucratic, and intimidating. Any AfCFTA benefit mechanism must therefore have pathways for informal actors to participate safely and beneficially.

Practical Advice: A Roadmap for Stakeholders

Translating vision into action requires tailored strategies for each key group.

For National Governments and Policymakers

• Review and Harmonize Regulations: Conduct impact assessments of SIM, mobile money, and data regulations on micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), particularly those run by women and youth. Work through the AfCFTA Committee of Trade Ministers to develop harmonized, pro-SME digital trade regulations.
• Fund and Integrate: Allocate specific budget lines for AfCFTA capacity-building that target women and youth. Integrate digital financial literacy and cross-border trade e-compliance modules into national vocational education and the “One Million Coders” type initiatives.
• Simplify Formalization: Create simplified, low-cost, and digital-first business registration processes with clear incentives (e.g., access to tenders, training) for informal traders to formalize.

For the Private Sector (Telcos, Banks, Tech Firms)

• Design Inclusive Products: Develop tiered, low-cost data bundles for business use, collateral-free micro-loans linked to digital transaction histories, and simplified, multilingual e-commerce platforms with built-in logistics support for smallholders.
• Partner for Scale: Leverage existing community networks (women’s groups, youth associations, cooperatives) for training and distribution. The Telecel Foundation’s agribusiness chain model is a strong example of sector-focused inclusion.
• Invest in Early-Stage Creativity: As Obo-Nai stated, the private sector must be “deliberate” about investing in early-stage skills (primary school coding, robotics clubs) to build the next generation of African innovators and manufacturers who can compete under AfCFTA.

For Development Partners and NGOs

• Fund Holistic Programs: Move beyond standalone digital literacy or business training. Fund integrated programs that combine skills, access to finance, mentorship, and market linkages.
• Support Data and Research: Invest in gender-disaggregated and age-disaggregated data collection on informal cross-border trade and digital tool usage to inform better policy and program design.
• Facilitate Peer Learning: Create platforms for successful women and youth traders under AfCFTA to share experiences and best practices across borders.

For Women and Youth Entrepreneurs

• Seek Out Training: Proactively engage with free government programs (like One Million Coders) and private-sector initiatives (like Telecel DigiTech Academy or Women in Business propositions).
• Start Digital, Start Simple: Begin with free or low-cost tools: use WhatsApp Business for customer communication, mobile money for transactions, and social media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok) for marketing and market research.
• Form or Join Collectives: Strength lies in numbers. Join or form trading groups, cooperatives, or online communities to share knowledge, pool resources for bulk shipments, and gain collective bargaining power.

FAQ: Addressing Common Questions

What exactly is the AfCFTA Protocol on Women and Youth?

It is a supplementary legal text to the main AfCFTA Agreement. It commits signatory countries to take specific measures to promote the participation of women and youth in trade. This includes eliminating discriminatory laws, improving access to finance and trade information, enhancing capacity-building, and fostering their participation in AfCFTA institutions and decision-making.

Is digital trade really that important for small, physical goods traders?

Absolutely. Digital tools are not just for selling software. They are used for: finding buyers/suppliers (on platforms like Alibaba or TradeKey), arranging cross-border logistics, tracking shipments, making and receiving payments instantly and cheaply (bypassing expensive wire transfers), accessing market price information, and marketing products globally. A trader using mobile money and WhatsApp is already engaging in digital trade.

Can informal traders really benefit from AfCFTA?

Yes, but it requires intentional design. Benefits could include reduced tariffs on goods they trade (e.g., agricultural products), simplified customs procedures under the “Authorized Economic Operator” schemes for trusted traders, and access to digital platforms that help them formalize and scale. However, without targeted support to navigate new rules and use digital tools, they risk being left behind or even harmed by increased formal competition.

Is the private sector’s involvement purely altruistic?

No. It’s a strategic business imperative. Empowering women and youth expands the customer base, creates new talent pools, fosters innovation, and builds brand loyalty. A larger, more prosperous middle class in Africa is the ultimate market for all industries. As Obo-Nai noted, investing in early-stage skills is an investment in the future consumer and workforce.

Conclusion: From Dialogue to Deployment

The Africa Prosperity Dialogues 2026 served as a crucial platform, moving beyond high-level rhetoric to identify concrete bottlenecks. Patricia Obo-Nai’s intervention provided a clear and urgent blueprint: the AfCFTA’s success will be measured not by the volume of trade statistics alone, but by the diversity of the Africans who participate in and benefit from that trade. The “innovation tools” of the 21st century—digital platforms, fintech, and data—are the new gatekeepers to market access.

Equipping females and youth with the abilities to use these tools is not a peripheral social project; it is central economic strategy. It requires a phased, collaborative approach: governments must create an enabling regulatory environment and fund integrated skills programs; the private sector must innovate inclusive products and invest in foundational education; and civil society must facilitate grassroots mobilization and training. The goal is to transition from a trade agreement that opens borders on paper to a dynamic, digital-integrated single market where a woman farmer in Ghana can sell directly to a supermarket in Côte d’Ivoire via her smartphone, and a young coder in Nigeria can export software services to Kenya seamlessly.

The time for planning is over. The era of deliberate, skills-focused deployment for inclusive AfCFTA implementation must begin now.

Sources and Further Reading

• African Union. (2018). Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCF