JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- African think tanks have committed to support the African countries in the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement to successfully realize the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
"We recognize that think tanks should be the source of the policies for the domestication of the AfCFTA, its implementation and monitoring and evaluation at the national, regional and continental levels," said the think tanks in a communique released on Friday representing the outcomes of their summit on Nov. 18-19.
The think tanks said they are ready and capable to provide evidence-based policy design on the implementation of the AfCFTA. The African experts offered to capacitate state and non-state actors, monitor and evaluate the progress of the AfCFTA.
"We commit to providing advice on the policy options and innovative solutions available to successfully tackle the bottlenecks facing the implementation of the AfCFTA using knowledge, research and networking, while expanding our outreach to policy actors and making our research accessible to support the AfCFTA," said the communique.
African think tanks recommended that they be supported to conduct studies on human, institutional and transformative leadership capacity gaps facing the continent. They also offered to share good practices on how to address them to facilitate the effective implementation of the AfCFTA.
The two-day summit was organized by the African Capacity Building Foundation, a specialized agency of the African Union (AU). It was attended by AU officials, government officials, think tanks, private sector, civil society among others. Enditem
