The AfCFTA Tech and Creative Group (ATCG) is a community of ecosystem builders across the African continent who are keen on making sure that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) as outlined in the African Continental Free Trade Agreement among 54 of the 55 African Union nations works for the entrepreneurs at the grassroots of Africa’s emerging tech and creative market.
The community will serve as a knowledge and information sharing platform that will make it easier for entrepreneurs in the tech and creative space in an African country to do businesses in another African country.
This ATCG online community will focus on three key areas in leveraging the AfCFTA,
International partnerships:
Members of ATCG who have identified common areas of interests can explore opportunities for partnerships.
Advisory Services:
Country specific experts from within the ecosystem will provide tailor-made advice to members that are interested in setting up their business in other parts of Africa. This service will cover the topics listed below;
- Practical information on doing business in other African Countries (Business registration, tax laws, etc).
- Identify the best market opportunities for their business (Market segments, market size, market competition, market development, etc).
- Information on Laws and standards.
- Advice on Intellectual property.
Innovation Support
Innovation Labs across Africa will be available through this community to provide business support for SMEs interested in setting up their business in their respective countries. Some of the services that will be available will include;
- Incubation support for SMEs.
- Prepare local SMEs to be investment-ready.
- Acceleration support for SMEs to gain international commercial success within Africa.
- Facilitate knowledge and technology exchange between labs in different countries to improve SME innovation within the community.
AfCFTA is the largest in the world in terms of participating countries since the formation of the World Trade Organisation over two decades ago, has the potential of bringing over 1.2bn Africans together into the same market.
The implementation of this agreement will boost intra-area trade, create jobs, enhance skills development, and assure best practices through smart competition among countries.
The core goal of AfCFTA is to encourage the free movement of “made in Africa goods”- goods and services made locally with dominant African content in terms of raw materials and value addition.