Nigeria’s AFCFTA Implementation Strategy - a Feminist Review

This is a continuation of the excerpt from the August 2024 #AFCFTAWatch

Wherever possible (documentation available and accessible) the AfCFTA Watch aims to review National AfCFTA implementation strategies and plans from a feminist lens.  This issue we take a look at the Nigerian Implementation and Strategy Plan. 

The Nigerian Implementation and Strategy Plan was written by Ernst and Young, with the main funder being UK Aid.   The Strategy is available on the internet and is a substantial read at 222 pages long.  At a surface level, the terms ‘gender’ and ‘women’ are mentioned 23 and 40 times respectfully throughout the document. 

The Plan does however claim that “the AfCFTA is projected to increase gender inclusion in Nigeria and hence reduce the overall poverty levels”.  But the gender analysis that unpacks exactly how or why this will happen still remains cursory, based on an assumption that the process of liberalisation itself will inherently deliver these outcomes, as long as there is some national-level facilitation aimed at inclusivity.

The strategy's gender analysis: a focus on entrepreneurs and traders

One area where the Plan therefore provides more focus is on boosting export capacity through gender inclusion, which is a dedicated subheading in the document. This brings an immediate instrumentalist lens to the analysis, where women are firstly seen as a means to an export end, yielding greater returns.  This centres women primarily as vehicles of productivity first. 

The more detailed analysis on women within the document focuses primarily on women as formal traders and entrepreneurs, with an expectation that the AfCTA will be a vehicle for women working informally as entrepreneurs and traders to become formalised.  The document then offers the International Trade Centre’s Strategy for Gender Inclusion within the AfCFTA, which includes skills development, gender specific waivers and exemptions, enforcement remedies, and - critically - research and impact assessment.  Inclusion is the critical word at play, primarily through the lens of women directly involved in trade (and by implication therefore not those whose work is not direct but nonetheless impacted by trade liberalisaiton). 

Women as employees/ formal workers in the production of traded products for example is not explored as meaningfully.  The strategy’s aims of gender inclusion are primarily interested in women entrepreneurs and own-account producers. But realistically the process of industrialisation will not lead to everyone being successful (and sustainably successful) entrepreneurs, and women least likely of all. Industrialisation - which is a primary aim of the AfCFTA - has first and foremost always created wage workers, especially if we are talking about the majority of women. 

The document does go on to recognise that the average wage of females in Africa is observed at 23.4% lower than males, especially in transport, agriculture, and the minerals industry, and that the AfCFTA seeks to change that. Nigeria-level stats are not offered however (recognising that this may be due to a dearth in data, and yet the absence of such a national level statistic should be noted as problematic in itself).   The document then goes onto offer the following continental-level projections on the surety of AfCFTA implementation:

“The implementation of the AfCFTA is projected to expand the output in women intensive industries, hence bridging the gap in gender wage differentials and significantly reducing the vulnerability and poverty levels among women in the continent with the exception of Southern Africa” (p.74). 

“The implementation of the AfCFTA agreement is expected to increase the employment opportunities for unskilled workers and bridge the gender wage gap lingering in the continent” (p.74). 

But these forecasts are based on the assumption that countries will “initiate and implement complementary policies to encourage labour mobility and equality”.  But this Nigeria Strategy and Plan itself certainly does not offer explicitly what those should look like, nor clearly confirm that in order for Nigeria to fulfil these promises of the AfCFTA, such dedicated policies are absolutely necessary.  Other assumptions include easy movement of workers between sectors and a fixed labour force participation rate; again both of these require dedicated political commitment through policy and will not simply be automatic.  The weight of these assumptions therefore cannot be underestimated, and accountabilities must be drawn around them if they are being used to present the AfCFTA as a process of gender equality. 

At this point the gender dive within the Strategy and Plan peters out.  Notably, the gender analysis within this document is exclusively about the pros of the AfCFTA, with no potential cons outlined that women might face through the liberalisation process, with possible mitigations/adjustments offered to help Nigerian policy makers deal with them.  There is also no substantive gender and trade analysis of the Nigerian context itself from a gendered angle, for example with a look at what key products are most likely to be impactful for women specifically, whether it be in terms of gains and losses.  

Areas that needed a gender and feminist lens

Interestingly, a review of the rest of the document shows us areas where a more gender-just and feminist lens is in need:

The strategy speaks of “untapped sectors” such as tourism and fashion, and petrochemicals that the AfCFTA will unlock, but gender analysis of these sectors is absent, even at a preliminary level (and without a further call for such gender analysis). 

Services

Trade in services is also a major area mentioned, noting that it accounts for 53% of GDP, with top services being travel, transport, and financial services, and this is one area that benefits from a dedicated box within the document, looking at what “mainstreaming gender and social inclusion in services trade” could look like.  Here, the strategy sees “gender-related benefits “ through the increased participation of women in exports and services such as back-office processing and call centres. 

This recommendation in itself is an acknowledgement that the AfCFTA and women is more than just about women and entrepreneurialism but is also very much about women and the creation of jobs - a reality (and its labour implications for women through structural inequalities in employment) that is nonetheless minimised in the overall gender narrative in this strategy.  Indeed, the analysis then immediately reverts back to proposals for how to increase women-owned services businesses (who will be a minority of the Nigerian women impacted).  The analysis also notes the importance of increased mobility of women to provide services such as education, health, or other professional services outside of Nigeria, a worrying proposition at this early stage of the liberalisation process in particular, given the significant deficit Nigeria has in domestic provision of such services to its own population. 

Agriculture

The continued importance of agriculture is noted, with the majority of the 22 key products identified for export growth in Nigeria coming from that sector based on the country’s comparative advantage.  A key recommendation that is missing from this document is the need for a gendered analysis of those products. A cursory review of them for those with an understanding of the gendered landscape of these products in Nigeria (shea, cowpea, soya, gum arabic, palm oil, rice to name just some) shows that women - who occupy roles across the value chains of these products and are intrinsically linked to the land and the labour that embody them -  will be heavily impacted by significant export moves in these products.  When export growth can often mean displacement from land, usurpation of traditional agricultural roles, male capture of new cash crops, and increased casualisation of labour as the work becomes industrialised, simple inclusion within the process is not enough to ensure that those impacts are genuinely positive. 

Special Economic Zones

This is more pertinent as Special Economic Zones are also mentioned (right at the top of the document in fact) as one of four recommended steps for building Nigeria’s export capacity - “Special Economic Zone Optimization”.  Given that globally Special Economic Zones have been sites of high levels of entry by women into the formal workforce, but often with jobs that are highly gender segregated and vulnerable to exploitation, this is a whole area in itself that requires a significant gendered analysis. 

The strategy names all the usual weaknesses within the Nigerian context as barriers that need to be overcome, e.g. power and energy deficiencies, customs, lack of transport infrastructure.  These barriers have differential impacts on women, and the ways they are addressed will require recognition of that and appropriate action. 

Reduced revenues and the impacts on fiscal responsibility

The strategy also notes that reduced tariffs may significantly impact Nigeria’s revenue and therefore fiscal responsibilities, but then frames this primarily as a loss for Nigeria’s ability to develop its trade infrastructure.  There is no recognition of what impact a loss of revenue will have on wider fiscal policy commitments such as social infrastructure which impacts women at a far greater level. And so while mitigations to the loss of revenue for infrastructure is put forward as the likelihood of higher foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into Nigeria to support infrastructure development and increase productivity, support diversification, value addition, etc, what this will mean for losses in universal public services and social protection (that even women entrepreneurs will also disproportionately rely on more than men!) is left absent.  Critically, the question needs to be asked whether reduced investment in social infrastructure from tariff losses will coincide with FDI that may also bring a further privatising (and therefore commodifying) impetus to the development of social services. 

The document also recognises that dumping (a process where other African economies with significant surplus of a product essentially “dump” that surplus on another country) is a threat.  Dumping de-stablises local producers significantly, with the most vulnerable within value chains - especially women - most impacted.  Aligned to this, the loss of revenue to local SMEs through increased competition is also noted. Which, given that women SMEs are likely the least able to withstand such competition, is a critical issue that again, is not unpacked, understood, or potentially mitigated against. 

More broadly (and not unexpectedly), there is a complete absence of any analysis of how women’s other economic roles (as consumers, as taxpayers, as users of public services, as carers) will likely be impacted by the liberalisation process.  While this strategy is not an impact assessment in itself, it does allow itself gender analysis that looks at gendered outcomes of trade as a preamble to its assertions. But again, these are exclusively through the lens of women as entrepreneurs and traders, and to a certain extent as own-account producers. If the strategy is willing to do that, why can the gender analysis go no further than this?  So the overarching claim of addressing gender inequality is short-sighted. Firstly in its understanding of gender equality within trade liberalisation as an entire process of economic transformation, and secondly in its actual gendered analysis of the Nigerian context in relation to the AfCFTA. It is critical to call this out and address it, because the dots connecting the ambition of growth and industrialisation within the AfCFTA and the claims of the AfCFTA delivering gender equality through inclusion continue to remain insubstantial.

See the full #AFCFTAWatch Edition #5 : August 2024 here