With the Treaty of Abuja in 1991, the Member States of the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) agreed on a road map for the creation of a common African market. In 2018, to accelerate the implementation of the Treaty and strengthen regional integration, the African Union (AU) Trade Ministers agreed to establish an African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

Despite many academic institutions and think tanks, both in Europe and Africa, already being actively involved in research surrounding the AfCFTA, its official launch in January 2021 and the upcoming start of phase II negotiations underline the urgency for deepening and closely coordinating of such activities.

Objectives

In order to address the need for bridging the gap between research and practice in a first step, a virtual, interactive workshop will bring together key organisations active in research, policy advice, and training/capacity building. Its overall aim is to not only support evidence-based policy-making but also to explore interest and ways to efficiently work together and making information and knowledge accessible to all players around the AfCFTA. The workshop serves to pave the way for future collaboration. Its key objectives are defined as follows:

• Explore AfCFTA-related research, capacity development and research cooperation, existing research gaps and share experiences / lessons learnt from on-going or past initiatives. (What is being done?)
• Identify, which topics and aspects of research, capacity development and research cooperation should be strengthened. (What should be strengthened?)
• Identify effective ways to further strengthen cooperation to support the negotiation and implementation of the AfCFTA process. (How should it be strengthened?)