African free trade treaty key to ending gun violence says Muchanga

The African Union Albert Commissioner for Trade and Industry Albert Muchanga, has said that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) adopted in 2018 could help reduce gun violence and other armed conflicts across the continent, enhance developmental policies and help silence the guns across the continent.

Muchanga stated this at a press briefing Thursday night as part of the ongoing 33rd African Union Summit in Addis Ababa.

“The advocates of free trade have long argued that its benefits are not merely economic,”

“They also point out that free trade reduces the possibilities of war by making nations more economically interdependent.

“Free trade makes it more profitable for people of one nation to produce goods and services for people of another nation,” he added.

Muchanga’s comments were in line with this year’s theme of the annual continental summit: “Silencing the Guns: Creating Conducive Conditions for Africa’s Development’, which has been underway at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa.

It would be recalled that a series of attacks has left hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced across the continent, creating an enduring humanitarian crisis. The AU refugee office said on Friday that over $100 million has been budgeted for displaced people on the continent this year.

The AfCFTA was adopted as a continent-wide policy for economic development in 2018. A few countries that did not initially sign up to the policy, including Nigeria, have since done so, opening the path for a coherent, broad-based implementation.

Muchanga said a thorough implementation of the policy, for which modalities are currently being drafted, would play positively into this year’s aim of reducing armed conflict in Africa.

“Poverty and unemployment are some of the key factors that generate social and political tensions,” the commissioner said. “If left to linger, it can transform into tensions and conflicts.”

About 54 of the 55 AU member states have signed the AfCFTA economic pact, with 28 countries ratifying pact.