AfCFTA: Women Exclusion Will Put $3.4trn Single Market At Risk, UNDP, FG Warn

The United Nations Development Programme(UNDP) and the Nigerian government have joined other stakeholders to demand immediate removal of financial, border and other barriers militating against women businesses in Africa, warning that this could jeopardise the $3.4 trillion Africa’s single market.

This was the crux of a programme of the African Continental Free Trade Area(AfCFTA) with focus on 2026 HerAfCFTA Regional Conference in Abuja on Monday with the theme “Women Advancing Africa’s Economic Transformation through Intra-African Trade: Scaling Impact,” which drew ministers, trade commissioners, development partners, business leaders and women entrepreneurs from across Africa.

The experts further cautioned that the continent’s ambition to create the world’s largest single market would remain unrealised unless governments urgently remove structural barriers limiting female entrepreneurs and traders to enhance integration.

Speaking at the conference, United Nations assistant secretary general and director of the Regional Bureau for Africa, Ahunna Eziakonwa, said women are the mainstay of Africa’s informal and small business economy but remain excluded from the policies, financing and infrastructure required to scale their enterprises across the continent.

Eziakonwa lamented the current global environment is characterised by fractured supply chains, rising protectionism and weakening multilateral cooperation, and emphasised the need for Africa to be independent of external markets to drive its development.

She described the AfCFTA as a strategic necessity capable of helping Africa retain value, build resilient supply chains and reduce dependence on exports of raw materials.

She urged African governments to harmonise regulations, simplify customs procedures, modernise logistics infrastructure, establish interoperable digital payment systems and eliminate barriers slowing the movement of goods and services across the continent.

“In a world that is disintegrating, Africa chooses integration. In a world that is building walls, Africa chooses bridges. If women cannot navigate the AfCFTA market, then Africa has built a market for only half of its people,” she warned.

She called for immediate reforms, including simplified regulations for women traders, increased investment in trade infrastructure and digital systems, and greater representation of women in trade negotiations and policy formulation.

Also speaking at the Conference in Abuja, the secretary general of the AfCFTA Secretariat, Wamkele Mene, said African women have demonstrated extraordinary entrepreneurial capacity despite significant structural constraints.

He disclosed that 83 per cent of Nigerian women identify as entrepreneurs, significantly higher than the continental average of 51 per cent, while women account for over 40 per cent of employment in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.

He disclosed that despite facing about a $49 billion financing gap African women constitute approximately 74 per cent of informal cross-border traders within West Africa and facilitate between $2.5 billion and $6.5 billion in annual ECOWAS trade.

“These are not merely statistics. They represent millions of women creating businesses, generating employment and driving economic transformation,” he said.

The AfCFTA secretary general highlighted the African Union Protocol on Women and Youth in Trade as a landmark achievement, describing it as the world’s first legally binding trade instrument specifically designed to promote women’s participation in continental trade.

Mene said that women businesses in Africa can be boosted with affordable finance, export readiness, market intelligence, digital trade skills, legal support, infrastructure and mentorship

Speaking as host, Nigeria’s Minister of Industry Trade and Investment, Jumoke Oduwole reaffirmed Nigeria’s commitment to ensuring that women become central beneficiaries of the AfCFTA.

The minister said that mainstreaming at AfCFTA was “an existential one,” arguing that the agreement could only succeed if it reflected the realities of the entrepreneurs who already dominate much of Africa’s private sector.

She also warned against treating women as a single homogeneous group, noting that female entrepreneurs operate across agriculture, manufacturing, services, technology and creative industries, each facing unique challenges requiring targeted policy responses