As Kanayo Awani remembers it, the seeds of a continental shift in intra-African commerce had been sown from the second the rapid previous president, Benedict Oramah, assumed management of Afreximbank in 2015.
“When you listened to his speech at his inauguration,” recollects Awani, govt vice chairman at Afreximbank’s Intra-African Commerce Financial institution, “he will need to have talked about intra-Africa commerce over 20 instances. You would glean from that that he was going to, underneath his management, prioritise intra-Africa commerce.”
On the time, intra-African commerce was a marginal concern and never on the frontburner on the financial institution.
“It was most likely about 3% of our portfolio. We did it perfunctorily. However along with his imaginative and prescient, issues modified and now we’re at about 35%.”
A chat by the Nile
The turning level in Awani’s personal mission to spice up intra-African commerce got here in an surprising setting.
“Someday Professor Oramah requested me to come back and see him. I used to be a director at the moment for commerce finance and branches. We had this dialog in his home; he used to reside in a home with a incredible view of the Nile. Downtown, Giza, and we had been trying on the river Nile.”
Oramah’s phrases had been direct and catalytic: “I need to introduce an intra-Africa commerce initiative, and I need you to guide it. I’m going to empower you.”
Kanayo didn’t settle for the problem instantly. She took a number of days to mull over the cost.
“I gave him my reply a number of days later. I stated, “I’ll take the problem. I need to do it.”
“In the beginning, we known as it an initiative as a result of we didn’t know which method or how one can do it. It was a problem. He had virtually given me a clean piece of paper, a clean cheque. And he had stated ‘Fill it up. That is what I need to do. We should develop intra-Africa commerce. We’ve to assist the implementation of the AfCFTA’.”
A brand new technique to spice up intra-African commerce
With solely an administrator by her facet, Awani started crafting the financial institution’s first devoted intra-African commerce technique.
“We labored with Deloitte. They studied the commerce, studied the challenges, and the alternatives. After which we used that to begin formulating the technique that can then information us.”
Three core pillars emerged to information them; create; join; and ship.
Create meant specializing in worth addition, increasing Africa’s processing and manufacturing capability One in all which we now see within the institution and improvement of business parks. Particularly round mild producers.”
Connection meant constructing market linkages in a continent the place commerce had been skewed via.colonial historical past.
And supply meant making certain markets had been served by environment friendly distribution and supply mechanisms, not least upgrades to move infrastructure.
When pondering the challenges inherent in all three areas, Awani says that structural points usually overshadowed the provision of finance.
“We needed to give you a deliberate interventionist strategy to intra-Africa commerce. After all, I’m coming from a enterprise improvement background. Finance is just not the one drawback right here…There are different non-tariff boundaries like lack of entry to commerce and market info.”
Kanayo’s imaginative and prescient prolonged to supply-side economics, product beneficiation, and worth addition.
“We’re a continent that’s so wealthy in uncooked commodities… however of what use is it for Ivory Coast to promote cocoa beans to Ghana or Nigeria? No use. That’s why the best type of intra-Africa commerce at the moment is manufacturing items.”
Banking beginnings
Earlier than Afreximbank, Awani spent 17 years at Citibank, her “first job after Nationwide Youth Service… I imbibed the best-in-class coaching in banking. I used to be skilled.”
Despite the fact that she had joined CitiBank as a contemporary graduate, Awani rapidly rose via the ranks.
“I used to be most likely the primary administration affiliate in Citibank from throughout the financial institution. It was sheer exhausting work… Finally I left as a vice chairman taking care of business and company industries.”
Her tenure coincided with seismic shifts in Nigeria’s industrial panorama, particularly the decline and collapse of the textile industrial, an expertise that informs her assist of manufacturerers at the moment.
“I used to be there when the textile trade in Nigeria collapsed… I used to be managing them, Indian and Chinese language corporations. I did see on the time how corporations can want assist.”
After virtually 20 years at Citibank, Awani started angling for the following frontier.
“I instructed you I really like challenges. The problem was not there. There was a restlessness in my spirit.”
That restlessness led her to Harvard College’s Kennedy Faculty, the place she pursued a mid-career grasp’s diploma in public administration, majoring in worldwide commerce and finance. She earned a fellowship in public coverage and administration.
To find time for Harvard, Kanayo took a sabbatical, hedging her bets whereas maintaining her function.
“You already know, typically you’re undecided of the long run. So, I needed to hedge towards that, and I saved the job.”
Launching the Intra-African Commerce Truthful
In a textbook case of preparation assembly alternative, the Afreximbank alternative opened after her stint at Harvard and with the function at Afreximbank got here the intra-African commerce break.
Ten years on, the intra-African commerce technique has change into a cornerstone of Afreximbank’s continental agenda.
Wanting again over these ten years, she will spotlight a raft of revolutionary initiatives which have been born from that dialog in that home in downtown Giza and so they embrace the Intra-African Commerce Truthful, the Pan-African Fee and Settlement System (PAPSS), industrial parks and African High quality Assurance Centres (AQAC), the Artistic Africa Nexus (CANEX) and the World Africa motion.
Strolling to the Afreximbank pavilion on the 2025 Intra-African Commerce Truthful in Algiers, a girl hailed Kanayo Awani as “Mama IATF.”
Kanayo says that the massive occasion is considered one of her most vital achievements, however she acknowledges that it felt daunting firstly.
“I’m a banker, so how do you manage a commerce honest? And never even only a commerce honest… an Intra-African Commerce Truthful that brings the entire continent collectively?”
The extra they deliberate for the inaugural commerce honest, the extra overwhelming the undertaking seemed to be.
“Some days I didn’t know the place to go however on my knees. To say, what did I get myself in? As a result of it simply saved rising and rising and rising.”
The 4th version recorded attendance from 132 nations made up of 958 patrons and a couple of,148 exhibitors with a report $48.3 billion in commerce and funding offers signed.
From digital showcases to automotive expos, from inventive industries to coverage roundtables, the honest turned a continental convergence level for governments coping with the personal sector in methods they hadn’t achieved earlier than.
Supporting the inventive industries
For a lot of, the inclusion of inventive industries in a commerce honest hosted by a monetary establishment may appear unconventional. However for Kanayo, it was important as a result of as “anyone who’s been concerned in commerce coverage for some time, I all the time knew that you need to deal with commerce in companies.”
“You may’t simply discuss items. And bear in mind, we did the extraordinary research… What are we attempting to do? To benefit from our low-hanging fruits. To benefit from our aggressive and dynamic comparative benefit as a continent.”
That benefit, she says, lies in Africa’s youth.
“By 2050, 70% of our inhabitants might be younger. However you additionally see the dreary nature of these younger individuals… You see people who find themselves pressured into the Mediterranean seas and the Sahara.”
But, regardless of the challenges she sees hope and brilliance.
“These younger individuals are not solely younger, however they’re additionally gifted. I’m Nigerian. Generally I launch the strain by simply taking a look at these comedy sketches that come out of it. It’s the abundance of expertise in music, abundance of expertise in trend… You have a look at all of that on the continent and say, ‘You already know what? It’s essential to take benefit and harness and exploit what you’ve obtained.’”
Awani’s imaginative and prescient for the inventive trade additionally goes past financing.
“Finance is important. However we have to do different issues. We have to construct capability. We have to deal with capability constructing to make them bankable. To present them the power to commercialise their skills.”
The IATF gives a novel stage for CANEX has change into a platform for that transformation.
“When you go to the inventive occasion right here, it’s masterclasses. It’s educating, in addition to leisure. However what else does a platform like this provide? It’s market entry.”
She can also be clear and centered on the broader objective sharing that past commerce the IATF is for fame administration for Africa as a result of “the commerce honest can also be for image-making.”
Monetising tradition
Awani’s strategy to the inventive industries is expansive and strategic.
“We throw every part at it. We attempt to resolve issues left, proper, and middle… What Afreximbank has is execution finesse. For us there’s no level speaking about it. If you are able to do one thing about it, do it” she says.
The vary of assist spans layered financing fashions from commerce to debt finance; a newly included firm to handle IP and fund filmmakers; facilitation programmes for market entry, grants and sponsorships; and a $1bn movie fund.
Explaining the mission of the latter, Awani says: “we realised that filmmakers are typically hamstrung by distributors… So we determined we can have an organization that can function a repository of Africa’s mental property and we’ll fund them.”
Trend is one other space of focus.
“We’ve supported over 100 trend designers from throughout the continent and the Caribbean… A few of them have gotten unimaginable offers.”
In music, CANEX has backed the One Drum EP, a fusion between Africa and Brazil that includes members of the Marley household and artists from throughout Africa.
However Kanayo Awani is clear-eyed in regards to the challenges and the necessity for creatives to change into financially literate.
“Fame is just not a collateral,” she says. “We’re banks. We have to see paperwork. If it’s too casual, we are able to’t speak to it.”
To unravel this drawback, Afreximbank invests in masterclasses, pitch deck coaching, and monetary literacy – even in sports activities.
“One in all our protégés obtained drafted into the NBA” Awani publicizes with delight.
Ladies and the ability of focus
The rise of girls entrepreneurs is the catalyst of a quiet revolution on the coronary heart of the IATF’s success one thing Kanayo Awani sees it as a pure consequence of the continent’s financial construction.
Requested whether or not IATF is deliberate in prioritising girls she says “it’s a sure and no reply… however it’s also an apparent one. SMEs are the engines of our financial system. And an enormous variety of SMEs – that’s the place you’re discovering girls. You assist a girl, you assist a household, you assist a neighborhood, you assist nations, you assist the continent.”
What dvice would Awani give to a younger lady looking for steerage?
“I can solely let you know what has labored for me… Simply stay centered. Don’t be too distracted by every part else that goes on.”
She factors to preparation, self-discipline, and intentionality as key to her personal rise to the highest.
“You need to place your self for alternatives… In any other case, the following man will take it.”
