The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Ghana in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), has organized the maiden edition of the Africa Sustainable Supply Chain Summit in Accra.
The annual event is designed to serve as a platform to exchange ideas and collaborate on the impact of market dynamics and new technologies for current and future supply chain and operations leaders.
The just ended 2-day conference in Accra created the opportunity for participants, largely private sector, to examine how to navigate supply chain disruptions within AfCFTA as well as how sustainable supply chain management, advanced technologies, process improvement and automation are being rolled out and can be leveraged in Africa.
The various speakers at the opening ceremony highlighted the need to accelerate Africa’s market integration on the back of sustainable and efficient supply chain systems.
The ICC Secretary General John Denton, speaking virtually noted that a robust foundation will help increase resilience and with clear and efficient processes in place, people will have certainties and businesses will have a framework to follow.
“Simply said, with lower trade costs, more trade will happen and this will long term create more growth and more revenues and more opportunities for better and more decent jobs and investments,’’ Mr. Denton said.
Dr. Angela Lusigi, Resident Representative, UNDP Ghana indicated that the delays and disruptions that affected global supply chains due to the Covid pandemic and more recently, the war in Ukraine and the global economic crisis should serve as a reminder that broken supply chains are one of the greatest threats to inclusive growth and sustainable human development in the continent. Therefore, “strengthening the resilience of Africa supply chains and enhancing the implementation of integrated supply chain solutions to advance economic, social and environmental goals is now more important than ever.”
The Secretary General of the AfCFTA Secretariat, Wamkele Mene revealed that Zimbabwe has annually 200 million dollars’ worth of excess grains. This excess grains go to waste because of the lack of capacity to store, process the grains and to export them to the rest of the continent. Sadly, according to Mr. Mene, Africa relies on Eastern Europe for 70% of grain requirements.
“So the challenge for us is to establish supply chain networks, technologies, and capabilities that will enable notjust Zimbabwe in this case but also Malawi, Ethiopia and any other country that has the capacity to export and provide food security for the African continent to do so.”
The Key Note speaker and Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry Michael Okyere Baafi, urged experts to come up with fruitful pragmatic interventions to solve the challenges of AfCFTA due to the economic breakthrough it promises.
He said domestically, it should be made easy and affordable for traders to connect with logistic networks on the continent especially with the introduction of the Pan African Payment System.
