Digital Trade in Africa: Implications for Inclusion and Human Rights

This includes pushing overall demand for closing digital divides, creating improved ICT infrastructure and overall better infrastructure to promote development solutions and through creation of jobs and employment.

In terms of human rights risks, however, technology must generally be made available, affordable and accessible, with equality and non-discrimination underpinning these rights of access and use, to enable participation in development and more generally in political, social and economic spheres. Digital trade can also have gendered impacts, which need to be assessed and dealt with. The purpose of the conference was to brainstorm preliminarily on the scope of the organisations’ joint research work on human rights and digital trade in the context of the AfCFTA.

It was co-organized by the African Trade Policy Centre (ATPC) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) East Africa Regional Office and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Geneva and AU Office.