Abuja to Host Africa Trade, Talent and Culture Festival to advance AfCFTA
The three-day event blends exhibitions, workshops, cultural shows and networking to showcase businesses and connect innovators with investors
By Samuel Okocha
Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, will host the first Africa Connected Through Trade, Talent and Culture Festival (AfCFTA Fest) from March 26 to 28, 2026, as organisers seek to draw young people and creative industries into Africa’s continental trade agenda.
The three-day event blends exhibitions, workshops, cultural shows and networking to showcase businesses and connect innovators with investors
“The festival is designed to strengthen intra-African trade and promote Africa as a single integrated market, while empowering 1.5 million young people in entrepreneurship, arts and sports, and facilitating more than $5 billion in trade deals and partnerships,” said Mandi Anyangwe, project lead of ACFTA Fest, at a press briefing in Lagos.
She said the initiative deliberately targets young people, creatives and innovators who are often excluded from formal continental trade discussions, despite their growing role in cross-border commerce and cultural exchange.
The initiative taps into a youthful population that is already active across Africa’s informal and creative economies. Organisers hope to demonstrate how entrepreneurs, artists and sports professionals can accelerate regional integration by turning shared culture into economic opportunity.
Africa’s creative industries, from film and music to fashion and sports, already move more freely across borders than many goods. ACFTA Fest aims to leverage that momentum to make the idea of a continental market more tangible, using culture as an entry point to trade.
Launched in 2021, AfCFTA, the world’s largest free trade area by membership, covers 54 countries. It seeks to raise intra-African trade, improve competitiveness and strengthen the continent’s position in global markets.
Intra-African trade rose 3.2% to $192 billion in 2023, accounting for 15% of the continent’s total trade, according to the African Export-Import Bank’s (Afreximbank) African Trade Report 2024. While that share is projected to rise to 22% by 2026, it remains well below Europe’s roughly 70% and Asia’s 60%.
Organisers of ACFTA Fest are betting that broader youth participation can help close that gap.
“It transforms the agreement from a policy-driven initiative into a vibrant, people-centred movement that connects Africans across borders,” the festival said on its website.
“By celebrating the continent’s talent, it helps build a more united and economically integrated Africa.”
Africa is the world’s youngest continent, with a median age of about 19–20 years, compared with 42 in Europe and 38 in North America. Roughly 60% of Africans are under 25, and more than 400 million people are aged between 15 and 35, according to estimates by the United Nations. By 2030, young Africans are projected to make up 42% of the world’s youth population.
While youth unemployment in sub-Saharan Africa remains a critical concern, ACFTA Fest organisers say entrepreneurship, the arts and sports offer alternative pathways to income and job creation, while strengthening cross-border trade links in the process.
