Integrating unequal partners in a comprehensive, continental Free Trade Area (FTA) to support Africa’s transformation and development is a complex, yet necessary endeavor. In this session, a panel of experts, closely connected to the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) processes, will reflect on the challenges of crafting a comprehensive FTA agenda, with complementary initiatives such as a continental industrialization strategy to support the development and diversification of productive structures undergirded by an Adjustment Fund to assist those countries – especially Africa’s least developed countries - that will face challenges from liberalization.

The panel will explore trade-industrial policy linkages from a development perspective, to underscore the economy-wide approach                     to transformation of Africa. The role of the Protocols on intellectual property rights (IPR), investment, competition policy, digital trade and women and youth in trade, in supporting Africa’s industrialization and trade development away from commodity dependence will be examined.  Trade-climate linkages in the context of the AfCFTA and its industrialization agenda will be explored.

Concluding remarks from the panel will focus on the implications of Africa’s trade and industrial agenda in the AfCFTA, specifically the Phase 2 and Phase 3 issues (investment, competition, IPR, digital trade, and women and youth in trade) for engagement in the World Trade Organization agenda for MC13, especially in the Joint Statement Initiatives.