Adeyemi Dipeolu, Oyebanji appointed as AfCFTA inaugurates 14-member advisory council

Adeyemi Dipeolu and Oyebanji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka have been appointed among the 14-member trade and industrial development advisory council of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

AfCFTA secretariat disclosed this in a recent statement announcing the inauguration of the council.

Wamkele Mene, secretary-general of the AfCFTA secretariat, said the establishment of an advisory council is to provide counsel on trade integration and transformative industrialisation. 

“It is against this background that Wamkele Mene convened a brainstorming workshop to discuss the matters of trade and industrial development, which led to his proposal to constitute an Advisory Council to provide advice on trade integration and transformative industrialisation as part of the implementation of the AfCFTA,” the statement reads. 

“The recent Summit of Heads of State and Government in February 2022 endorsed this proposal.”

The statement added that Adeyemi Dipeolu, special adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on economic matters and Oyebanji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, special advisor to the president of African Development Bank (AfDB) on industrialisation, are members of the advisory council.

Others are Jane Ezirigwe, Arkebe Oqubay, Rob Davies, Taffere Tesfachew, Celestin Monga, Carlos Lopes, Magda Shahin, Caroline Ncube, Fiona Tregenna, Stephen Karingi, Gainmore Zanamwe and Faizel Ismail.

“Dr Arkebe Oqubay, a Senior Minister and Special Adviser to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and has been at the centre of policymaking for over 30 years,” the statement reads. 

“Dr Rob Davies retired in May 2019 after completing ten years of service as South African Minister of Trade and Industry and twenty-five years as a member of Parliament. 

“Dr Taffere Tesfachew is an international consultant on trade and development-related issues. He was director of the Division on Africa and Least Developed Countries, UNCTAD.

“Carlos Lopes is Professor in the Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town. He has occupied several leadership positions across the UN system, including policy director for Secretary-General Kofi Annan and executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

“Jane Ezirigwe is a research fellow at the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS) with research interests focused on food & agriculture, law, human rights and development.

“Dr Celestin Monga is a Visiting Professor of Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Faculty Associate at the Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard University, and Fellow at the Harvard University Center for African Studies. He is also a part-time Professor of Economics at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and a Research Professor at Peking University’s Institute of New Structural Economics.

“Ambassador Magda Shahin is the Director of the Prince Alwaleed American Studies Centre at the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP) at The American University in Cairo.

“Professor Caroline Ncube is an NRF rated researcher and holds the DST/NRF SARChl Research Chair in Intellectual Property, Innovation and Development. She is a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Society and a Shell Centenary Fund Scholar. She is an Associate Member of the Centre for Law, Technology and Society, at the University of Ottawa.

“Prof Fiona Tregenna heads the DSI/NRF South African Research Chair (SARChI) in Industrial Development, leading this centre of research, training and policy engagement, and is also a Professor of Economics at the University of Johannesburg. She sits part-time on the South African Competition Tribunal (appointed by the president), where she adjudicates competition cases.

“Dr Stephen Karingi is currently the Director, Regional Integration and Trade Division of the Economic Commission for Africa. He joined the United Nations in April 2004. Before joining the United Nations, Dr Karingi was a Senior Analyst and the Head of the Macroeconomics Division in the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA), a Public Policy Think-Tank. Before KIPPRA, he served as a Lecturer of Economics at Egerton University.

“Dr Gainmore Zanamwe is a Senior Manager: Intra-African Trade Facilitation, African Export-Import Bank.

“Professor Faizel Ismail is the Director of Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town. He served as Permanent Representative to the WTO and recently authored a book titled AfCFTA and developmental regionalism.”