Policy Brief No. 4 2024 - The AfCFTA's Rules of Origin:

Thirdly, there is an imperative for the RoO to be sensitive, on the one hand, to the strategic growth trajectory of SMEs, especially in promoting and enabling their participation in regional markets and value chains; and relatedly on the other, there must be a recognition of the critical role that factoring can play in facilitating the seamless flow of goods and services within and across supply c. [...] SMEs, factoring, and the potential of the cotton, textile, and apparel industry The AfCFTA represents a transformative moment in the continental landscape of historical attempts to put in place normative, strategic, and operational prescripts for integration that would be faithful to the vision of Pan-Africanism (Ismail 2021). [...] This will add greater clarity and certainty to the potential of SME participation in the development of local supply chains, and entry into the extensive and diversi ed goods and services demanded in regional markets and value chains. [...] The ACBF, the Afreximbank, the Africa Finance Corporation, the AfCFTA's Guided Trade Initiative and its SME Facility, and the African Business Forum (representing the private sector) in conjunction with UNECA, the AfDB, and the IMF should constitute a task team to examine how RoO in the cotton, textiles, and apparel industries could assist SMEs to enter, sustain, develop, and bene t from their par. [...] The ACBF, Afreximbank's Factoring Unit, the AfCFTA's Guided Trade Initiative and its SME Facility, the AfDB's secretariat for Making Finance Work in Africa, with the assistance of FCI and the Africa Finance Corporation should constitute a task force to: * develop an inventory and data base of the current stakeholders in the cotton, textiles, and apparel industry across the eight regional economic.