TheCable

The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) is organising a vision challenge to boost access to funding and technology capacity for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and innovators across Africa.

In a statement on Wednesday, AfCFTA said the vision challenge is organised in partnership with Sankoree Institute of AfroChampions and in support of African Union (AU) open corridors initiative.

It said African startups, SMEs, innovators and entrepreneurs must submit solutions to challenges posed by some of Africa’s foremost political leaders to secure investment.

The development finance institutions and banks that will serve on the institutional jury were listed to include African Development Bank (AfDB), Trade and Development Bank (TDB), African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), Equity Bank; Ecobank, Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) and Commercial International Bank (CIB).

The two rolling deadlines for submission are November 30, 2020, and December 22, 2020.

Francis Mangeni, director of trade promotion and programs at AfCFTA secretariat, said: “It is easy to showcase your solutions and attract support from a broad array of development finance institutions we have approached by simply visiting www.afcfta.blog/challenge”.

“Once in the portal, you can obtain an AfCFTA number from the main AfCFTA App, allowing you to participate freely in the contest to raise resources to advance any solutions you are working on that can propel AfCFTA forward.”

It said the super-app serves as a base for a continental business registry, trade directory, cross-border trade facilitation network, and a dashboard for the private sector to interact with upcoming Africa trade observatory.

AfCFTA said an extraordinary summit of heads of state and government will hold on December 5, 2020.