AfCFTA: FG, States To Launch National Investment Coordination Framework

Nigeria plans to launch the National Investment Coordination Framework to increase the country’s FDI earning and coordination within the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement regime.

The Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, Hajiya Saratu Umar said this at a stakeholder engagement for heads of investment promotion agencies in states. She said “National Investment Coordination Framework being evolved will provide a clear strategy for a seamless collaboration and coordination of the investment ecosystem as well as usher in a robust and effective stakeholder communication and engagement.” According to Umar, all stakeholders in the investment promotion ecosystem ought to work in synergy and complement NIPC’s mandates and competences to facilitate a national investment promotion campaign under the National Investment Promotion Masterplan which will also holistically accommodate investment opportunities at the state levels.

She said this will result in effective partnership with all concrete stakeholders including sub-national investment promotion players. “A National Council of Investment Promotion will also be launched by the NIPC under its chairmanship and membership of all sub-nationals with investment promotion roles to facilitate, a peer review, seamless coordination of the activities of the national and state IPAs for holistic growth and development,” Umar added. The NIPC boss said the agency will also enhance its capacity building for investment functions at the sub-national levels and create a standardised template for the collection of investment-grade project data, information on business-enabling reforms, etc. at the subnational level; that will feed into a dashboard (Investment geomap) to be developed and domiciled at the NIPC, amongst others.

She said “the commencement of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area makes it imperative for Nigeria to enhance its investment promotion drive and outclass other economies within the Area, in order to remain the preferred investment destination of choice. Because with ACFTA, an investor can establish an operation in any African Country that is signatory and still access the Nigerian market. But the investment promotion drive of the country is largely fragmented, thereby depriving us of cohesive leverage we could have achieved if we synergised our efforts and resources. This absence of a coordination and monitoring mechanism has for the most part left the investing community largely in a state of confusion. Additionally, the coordination of investment promotion activities between the National IPA, NIPC, and sub-national IPAs for the effective implementation of investment promotion activities is largely absent. Country level effort should be created for investment promotion under the coordination of the national IPA, NIPC and protocols put in place, to avoid a “race to the bottom” conduct, which will eventually be detrimental.

“The central and strategic role of the NIPC in the coordination of all investment promotion should therefore be activated to ensure Nigeria’s investment promotion drive is given traction to onboard investments into the different sectors of the economy in a bid to facilitate economic growth and national development as well as job creation, import substitution, foreign exchange generation and reduction of our reliance on debt amongst others,” Umar added.