Harare, (New Ziana) -The Southern African Development Community (SADC) in partnership with the African Development Bank (AfDB) will on Tuesday next week hold a virtual stakeholders public lecture on regional integration in Africa.
In a statement on its X handle, the SADC secretariat AfDB director for regional integration coordination Dr Joy Kategekwa will deliver the public lecture, which will start at 1400 hours.
“The public lecture offers a unique platform for engaging and promises to be an insightful forum for dialogue and knowledge exchange among leading think-tanks, policymakers, practitioners, non-state actors, development partners and the public, including the youth and influential voices driving Africa’s integration agenda,” it said.
It said the lecture also offers an opportunity for networking with other stakeholders who are committed to realising the continent’s development aspirations.
The SADC secretariat said Dr Kategekwa is a respected international trade and investment lawyer who has dedicated her career to structuring Africa’s trade policy, negotiations and industry landscape for sustainable development, and to ensure that Africa’s integration into global trade is beneficial and wealth creating.
It said Dr Kategekwa is passionate about building the next generation of Africa’s trade law/policy practitioners and has spent over 15 years offering guest lectures on international trade, investment, regional integration and development at leading global centres of learning.
As part of the regional integration agenda, African countries signed the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) to create a single continental market with a population of about 1.3 billion people and a combined GDP of approximately US$ 3.4 trillion.
The AfCTA is the world’s largest free trade area bringing together the 55 countries of the African Union (AU) and eight (8) Regional Economic Communities (RECs). It is one of the flagship projects of Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want, the African Union’s long-term development strategy for transforming the continent into a global powerhouse.
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