English-French Companion for ECOWAS and AfCFTA Business Travelers and French Companion for African Economic Community are two books, or more appropriately, language communication manuals because of the immediate functionality, written by Dr. Dare Arokoyo, until recently associate professor and provost of the School of Continuing Education at the Houndegbe North American University in Benin Republic.
It is important to point out quickly that Dr. Arokoyo’s main concern, and for good reason, is to write manuals that facilitate the lingual side of the ‘ease of doing business’ between and among African countries.
Dr. Arokoyo argues, rightly, that ‘political and economic actors [armed] with bilingual communication capacity [are vastly better equipped] to engage in inter-lingual territorial mobility for export promotion, services…’. Backed by the necessary political will, a continental body such as AfCFTA can enable Africa to speak with one united voice on trade negotiations with other big and well organized trading blocs. A report in African Business says that ‘by driving the continent’s integration, the AfCFTA will result in wider and deeper RCVs [regional value chains] thereby laying the foundations for a Made-in-Africa Revolution’.