At the International School for Magistracy and International Relations, IRIC, Ms. Vera Songwe gave practical lessons as to how West Africa can boost its economy with a new continental free trade partnership.

"Half of the chicken consumed in Africa, comes from Brazil because we don’t have enough maize in West Africa to entertain our poultry sector. Why don’t we get maize from Malawi”, questioned the Economist. “When there’s no maize in Cameroon, we can buy from Malawi and the reverse. I think this is the power if the free trade agreement”, she proposed.

Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute on the first day of her visit to Cameroon this Wednesday, assured the UN Under Secretary- General and Executive Secretary of the Commission.To Ms. Songwe, the African Continental Free Trade Area is more than just a trade agreement, but a recipe for engendering domestic growth.

"I always use the example of Cotton. Chad produces Cotton, as well as Mali, Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Niger. We export raw cotton to China, the cotton is then processed and sent to Ethiopia, where it is stitched and sent to the United States. We could actually do the concept in the Sahel. We process it and send to Lesotho to be stitched. That is devaluation and stays in the continent and creates jobs in the continent.”, she said.

While wrapping up her talk this Thursday, she paraphrased Nelson Mandela's words which states that “there’s no pleasure in settling for less when we can a lot more”.