06 Nov 2023

Prioritising collaboration amongst regional economic communities is imperative for bolstering free movement and trade nexus in the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

Migration Advisor to Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Mr Brian Chigawa, said this Thursday during a plenary session, dubbed Parliamentary Engagement: Exchange Between RECs and Parliamentarians on Free Movement, Labour Migration and Trade Nexus, on the margins of the Pan African Forum on Migration (PAFoM)–8, which took place from October 31 to November 2 at the Royal Aria Convention Centre in Tlokweng.

Mr Chigawa said collaboration with the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) had resulted in  a tripartite free trade area with  a component of movement of businesspersons.

He said the collaboration was necessitated by the fact that without free movement of people across the continent, business would not occur, and this added to the costs of doing trade.

“So in order to avoid duplication of efforts, the three organisations have become one trade regime under the tripartite. It’s composed of 26 member states from SADC, COMESA and EAC,” he said.

He said they were currently waiting for two ratifications for the tripartite agreement to go into force.

Mr Chigawa said a week ago, the Kingdom of Lesotho signed the tripartite agreement and Botswana had already contracted as well. In addition, he said good things were coming in terms of regional integration, indicating that member states were moving towards the AfCFTA.

He reiterated that all regional economic communities also participated in the negotiations of AfCFTA, highlighting that they had supported member states in the negotiations and most recently in the implementation phase.

Meanwhile,  Gaborone North Member of Parliament, Mr Mpho Balopi, said he had observed that there was not sufficient political will from governments to entrench communication on migration. Mr Balopi however, said this was not the responsibility of governments alone , but was a shared responsibility requiring input of  other groups and institutions.

He said communication across the nations to demystify negative narratives about migration across the continent was critical.

He said it was also critical, especially with the prevailing high rates of unemployment within nations, for governments to openly communicate and balance between skilled and unskilled labour, with the consideration of transferring skills to allow for labour migration.

Mr Balopi said the other thing that could impact the communication on migration would be to empower countries, towns and cities to further stand their position as agents of migration.

He said this recommendation was stirred by observations and lessons learnt from other countries, which have strong and organised groups which stood firm against migration and benefits thereof.

Mr Balopi finally advised countries to end xenophobia by all means and endeavour to share success stories on migration to end the myths associated with the phenomena. Ends