If intra-Africa trade is to grow, we need to do it more efficiently, says Cebisile Nyambe, national project co-ordinator for public and private procurement and the social economy project (PPPSE) of the International Labour Organisation. “We are wasting time and money at our borders. It is not simply about exporting our products and trading with each other or the rest of the world. We must not forget that this continent is heavily affected by poverty. Trade is the only way of changing that.” It’s a sentiment shared by the WTO and World Bank which has published a report on the role of trade in ending poverty. “This report states that improving the efficiency of trade is the key component of development and poverty reduction,” says Nyambe. She believes that in order to increase cross-border trade it’s necessary to connect more people in rural regions with trade opportunities while at the same time formalising the large volumes of informal trading that is taking place.
