AfCFTA Success Stories

Joel Tuyishime’s journey into horticulture exports began with avocados. Tuyishime is the CEO of Agri Solution Ltd, a horticulture export company based in Kigali, Rwanda.

“We started horticulture in 2017. At the time, Rwanda produced few products for exportation and the government was [focused] on increasing exportation levels. That’s when I started learning about export. We started with avocados because it was needed in Dubai,” says Tuyishime.

The benefits that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement will bring to Africa’s people and businesses, once it is properly up and running, are almost unimaginable, says Tunisian businessman Mokhtar Zannad, CEO of Aramis, Tunisia.

“It is estimated that by 2050 there will be 2.5-billion people in Africa … Imagine the need for food, fuel, paper,” says Zannad, whose company Nielsen Recycling Solutions develops and manufactures machines used by the recycling industry.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will change lives, says Zambian businesswoman Chananga Bwembya Nkowani, who manufactures woodwork, jewellery and clothing in Lusaka, Zambia.

The AfCFTA is the largest free trade area in the world by number of participating countries, connecting 1.3-billion people across 55 African countries with a combined GDP of $3.4-trillion, as measured by the World Bank in 2020, and the potential to lift 30-million Africans out of extreme poverty by boosting intra-African trade.

In five short years Rahmat Sai Jimah’s food manufacturing company has gone from making its first-ever sale to exporting Ghanaian home comforts to North America and Switzerland.

In 2019 Chopbox Express was born out of an idea that had been percolating in Sai Jimah’s head for many years. She started an online food store to sell pre-made Ghanaian dishes like hausa koko, a spicy corn or millet porridge; koose, a deep-fried bean cake; and toogbei, a fried dough snack.