The Executive Vice President of the Intra-African Trade Bank (INATB), Kanayo Awani, has expressed optimism about the newly launched first Africa Academy aimed at building skills of the business community within Africa.

The training programme is provided jointly by the International Trade Centre (ITC) and Afreximbank and is designed to prepare African enterprises to take maximum advantage of intra-African trade and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

This comes at a time when Trade finance has heightened importance with the huge acceleration in intra-African trade being driven by the African Continental Free Trade Area’s creation of a huge single market of almost 1.4 billion people.

Addressing the press on the sidelines of a three-day Afreximbank Trade Finance Seminar 2022 (ATFS2022) which opened in Kampala Uganda, Awani stressed that the academy will offer efficiency, quality and certification of trained members.

“In the past, we have been sending our people across the world to be trained on the changing dynamics, but with the academy nowhere in Africa, we are sure that it will be easily accessible, cheaper and will address concerns in the African context,” Awani explained.

The free online training programme includes seven modules: The Opportunity of Intra-African Trade, Getting Your Business Ready for Export, Researching African Markets, Developing an African Market, Market Access Conditions, Financing Intra-African Trade and Delivering to African Markets.

The deputy governor Bank of Uganda, Michael Atingi-Ego, commended Afreximbank for the timely choice of topics to be discussed like the impact of the Ukraine/Russia conflict on African trade and economies.

“Participants will leave the ATFS 2022 with relevant and actionable knowledge, skills, and richer networks among notable trade finance practitioners. I commend Afreximbank for championing the building of capacity for understanding international trade, trade finance and trade-related project finance and the various tools available to structure financing by instilling the skills required to meet the challenges of financing transactions, especially in times of economic uncertainty," he said.

The meeting will in the next three days discuss among other topics challenges of financing trade across borders, mitigating compliance risk in trade finance & trade based money laundering, Africa's health security after Covid-19 and the need for resilient health systems among others.

Photo caption: Ministry of Finance’s economic affairs director Moses Kaggwa (second left) and Afrieximbank President Dr. Benedict Oramah (right) unveil the Afrieximbank academy plaque as Bank of Uganda Deputy Governor Michael Atingi-Ego (left) looks on at the opening regional trade finance conference at Speke Resort Munyonyo. Photo by Benon Ojiambo