The African continental market: A lever for empowering African youth (By Michel Simel BASSE)

The true wealth of the continental African market lies not only in the increase in trade between African states, but in its capacity to create a space where African youth can transform their human capital into economic, social and continental value.

This reflection originated from the convergence of two areas of interest.

The first consists of work carried out in a professional context on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The second is a phenomenon that cannot be ignored: the immigration of many young Africans, often via difficult, dangerous and sometimes cruel routes.

This mass immigration is the source of human tragedies, social and family divisions, as well as individual and collective suffering. In many respects, it constitutes a major challenge for the continent.

The works to which we refer specifically concern the implementation of the AfCFTA. From a doctrinal perspective, they lead us to support the idea that this implementation could reveal the emergence of a genuine branch of law: the law of the African continental market.

The Agreement establishing the AfCFTA is one of the most ambitious legal and economic projects on the African continent. Its aim is clearly to create a framework of rules governing trade in goods and services, competition, investment, and intellectual property, while also addressing the multiplicity of trade regimes that still characterize the continent. The AfCFTA is thus intended to stimulate intra-African trade and promote economic integration through the structural transformation of economies, development, food security, and industrialization.

From this perspective, it constitutes a project that goes far beyond the sole interest of legal experts. For before the law, there was a political will; this will produced legal instruments, which are intended to frame and secure the economic reality of a continental market in construction.

The Agreement thus creates a continental African market.

But what is a market?

It can be defined as a space where supply and demand meet to facilitate the exchange of goods, services, capital, or rights, according to specific rules. This definition is intentionally broad: a market is not necessarily a geographical location. It is primarily a space for exchange and value creation.

The AfCFTA is the central instrument of African economic integration envisioned by the Abuja Treaty. It is progressively based on a legal framework structured around dedicated institutions, protocols, technical annexes, and a dispute settlement mechanism. This framework aims to ensure legal certainty, the application of rules, and the effectiveness of commitments made by the States Parties.

This is a considerable ambition.

But, however promising it may be on paper, it confronts a human reality that would be difficult to ignore: the despair of a segment of African youth and their lack of prospects. A youth that, all too often, feels insufficiently involved in national, community, or continental public policies.

However, the African continent possesses considerable potential. But this potential does not yet generate sufficient value for the benefit of its own population.

Among the many obstacles that explain this situation is precisely the deficit in the creation and distribution of value.

Since the 2000s, one of the most visible symptoms of this deficit has been the scale of migratory movements, particularly towards Europe.

Immigration is certainly not solely an economic or commercial phenomenon. It is driven by multiple factors: political, social, demographic, security-related, familial, and individual. But it can also be seen as an indicator of a market's capacity to offer its population sufficiently attractive economic and social prospects. When a market fails to allow a segment of its youth to transform their work, talent, or entrepreneurial spirit into a decent life and future prospects, these young people may be led to seek elsewhere the opportunities they cannot find at home.

A young person doesn't usually leave their family, culture, and country at the risk of their life simply for the thrill of adventure. In many cases, their departure reflects the conviction that what they could contribute, create, or build will not be sufficiently recognized, compensated, or protected in their immediate environment.

In other words, immigration can also be understood as a migration towards spaces perceived as offering more opportunities.

This obviously does not mean that host markets always meet migrants' expectations. Many discover, once they arrive, precariousness, exploitation, irregularity, or extremely difficult living conditions. But the initial decision often rests on a comparison between two future prospects.

This phenomenon deserves to be observed in the light of a broader economic reality.

When a market creates little value, capital may turn away from it.

When a market creates little value, companies are hesitant to invest in it or look for other opportunities. When a market creates little value, talent eventually leaves.

For highly qualified individuals, the term "brain drain" is often used. For other young people, less qualified or with limited resources, the search for opportunities can take the form of particularly dangerous migratory journeys.

In both cases, the same logic can be observed: mobility responds to the search for opportunities and prospects.

This is why African thinking about the continental market cannot be limited to goods, capital, businesses or legal rules. It must necessarily integrate its human dimension.

If the AfCFTA truly succeeds in building an integrated market capable of promoting investment, industrialization, innovation and the flow of goods, services, capital and skills, it could help to change the economic prospects available to African populations.

The goal should obviously not be to prevent young people from leaving. Freedom of movement, when exercised freely and safely, is an asset. The challenge is rather to ensure that leaving is a choice and not a necessity dictated by despair. Staying because one can build a decent life at home; leaving because one wants to discover, start a business, study, or work elsewhere; returning, perhaps, to pass on knowledge and invest: this is what a true continental market should allow.

The AfCFTA cannot, on its own, resolve the migration issue. This issue depends on numerous and complex factors. The creation of a continental market cannot therefore constitute a sufficient answer. It can, however, represent one of the foundations of a structural response, by influencing value creation and the opportunities offered to populations.

A link must therefore be established between the continental African market, value creation and the human challenge that the future of African youth represents.

Because Africa's true wealth lies in its human resources. And, foremost among these, is its youth.

Beyond law, economics and politics, the continental African market must be able to be thought of as an ecosystem for the creation, circulation, protection and transmission of value between African peoples.

Law is only one dimension of this ecosystem. The economy is another. Integration policy constitutes its governance framework.

The proper functioning of this system should allow the continental market to create value, while the law of the continental market will serve to secure this creation and the resulting exchanges.

Continental institutions will help ensure the effectiveness of the rules. Infrastructure will allow the value created to circulate. Universities and research centers will produce the knowledge and skills necessary for innovation. A continental currency, should it ever come into being, could constitute another instrument of this integration. And many other components would complete this ecosystem.

The issue is therefore broader than simply building a free trade zone.

A market that creates sufficient value is a market capable of retaining its talent, stimulating investment, fostering innovation, and supporting sustainable development and shared foresight.

In Africa, policymakers and leaders, who are merely temporary custodians of public responsibility, thus have the opportunity to make the continental market a space that reveals and unleashes the continent's value; a space that stimulates creativity, facilitates exchanges between African peoples, and contributes to a broader and more equitable distribution of the wealth produced. Ultimately, the African Continental Free Trade Area could therefore find its deepest impact in empowering African youth, beyond the realms of law, economics, and politics. For the value created by the African continental market cannot be an end in itself.

It must be at the service of the children of Africa.

By Michel Simel BASSE

Lawyer, Doctor of Law