Equity Bank has embarked on an ambitious plan to spearhead the recovery of Africa through the African Recovery and Resilience Plan. The vision behind the plan is to bring the continent back on its feet through well-coordinated efforts and investment towards industrialization and market creation within the continent. One Africa, one African people and one African market. Equity is proud to be a facilitator for this and has kicked things off by setting aside Ksh16 billion dollars as seed money.
With global trade policies that have often disadvantaged Africa and the economic shocks that have been occasioned by Covid19 and the Ukraine war, Africa’s economies are in tatters. What these two global tragedies have done is to expose the unsustainability of the world’s social and economic order, and to show the need for the continent to reset largely on her terms.
The African Recovery and Resilience plan will be run through six pillars that will see to the growth of different sectors independently and culminate into one bigger picture of Africa as an economic giant. These pillars are:
- Food and agriculture
- Trade and investment
- MSMEs
- Technology
- Manufacturing and logistics
- Social and environmental transformation
Africa is rich in several factors that will make the recovery plan a success. We have a continent that is rich in natural minerals, fertile land for agriculture, strong financial institutions, and a young vibrant youth with great ideas and energy for entrepreneurship. All these combined are a great base on which to build a formidable region hinged on industrialization. We also have a large population of 1.4 billion, and this creates a market for goods and services from the region for the region.
It is expected that a project of this magnitude will have its fair share of challenges, but with diligence and the right partnerships, this ship will turn. It will take time, but it will turn. For instance, each African country is dealing with localized social and economic issues and these all add up to a largely impoverished region. Trade policies in individual countries are not always geared towards a united Africa, and there is poor cross border infrastructure to facilitate movement of goods and reduce the cost of doing business. There is need for harmonization of these and many other factors that stand in the way of the growth of Africa as a block.
With a reduction of these challenges, coupled with enhanced manufacturing and value addition as opposed to exporting raw materials, we will create millions of jobs, empower the people, and lift the continent. Through this project Equity Bank aims to empower 5 million MSMEs with the prediction that each of these will create 5 direct jobs and 5 indirect ones. That is a lot of jobs for the African youth and is quite a significant contribution to growth. If we produce and manufacture, create jobs and trade among ourselves, we are well on our way to having a resilient continent in future.
We will be doing a series of articles around the African Recovery and Resilience Plan and in the ones to follow this one, we will look more at the plan, how each of the pillars will work, and how Equity bank is empowering its members to be part of this massive growth. Stay tuned.