Africa’s economic transformation will not be delivered by policy documents alone. It will be built by traders, small manufacturers, women entrepreneurs, and young founders who can move goods across borders without friction.
This powerful message echoed through the halls of the Africa Prosperity Dialogues (APD) as Dr. Daniel McCauley, Executive Director of the McDan Group, took the stage to address the theme:
“Empowering SMEs, Women & Youth in Africa’s Single Market: Innovate. Collaborate. Trade.”
Speaking with clarity and conviction, Dr. Daniel reminded delegates that Africa’s SME journey is deeply personal and deeply familiar.
In 1996, long before boardrooms and summits, Dr. Daniel McCauley was trying to survive. After dropping out of school, he turned to the streets in search of opportunity. He began buying maize, storing it in warehouses, and releasing it during peak demand.
It worked.
The profits followed. Then came coffee trading. What started as survival soon became enterprise. Yet, along the way, one reality reshaped his thinking.
“Almost 90 percent of the people I traded with were women,” he recalled. “That experience changed how I saw entrepreneurship in Africa.”
That moment planted a lifelong commitment to women-led businesses and informal traders, the backbone of Africa’s economy.
Africa stands at a historic crossroads. The continent is home to over 1.5 billion people and boasts the youngest workforce in the world. Innovation hubs are rising. Cities are expanding. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has officially created the world’s largest single market by number of countries.
Yet, despite this promise, intra-African trade remains alarmingly low at 15–18 percent.
Dr. Daniel McCauley did not mince words.
“Africa trades more with distant markets than with itself. It’s like a massive family choosing to do business with strangers,” he said.
For him, the reason is structural. Small and medium-sized enterprises make up more than 80 percent of Africa’s businesses and provide the majority of jobs, yet they remain locked out of cross-border trade.
“If SMEs cannot trade across borders,” he warned, “AfCFTA will remain a beautiful document, not a living marketplace.”
African entrepreneurs, according to Dr. Daniel McCauley, operate in fragmented systems riddled with inconsistent customs processes, overlapping regulations, and weak logistics.
In some cases, moving goods within Africa costs more than exporting them outside the continent. He cited examples where cargo traveling from Ghana to Senegal must pass through Europe before returning to West Africa.
“That is not a market failure,” he stressed. “That is a system failure.”
Every delay at the border, every unclear regulation, and every unnecessary cost can push a small business toward collapse. For SMEs, these are not technical issues, they are survival issues.
Trade does not move on ambition alone. It moves on ships, planes, and logistics networks.
To close this gap, the McDan Group has invested heavily in African connectivity, including efforts to establish direct maritime routes across the continent. Through initiatives inspired by the historic Black Star Line, the company aims to reduce Africa’s dependence on foreign shipping lines.
“Cargo from Ghana to Senegal should not have to go to Belgium first,” he said.
By investing in vessels and offering special shipping rates for SMEs, McDan Group is enabling small businesses to scale, compete, and survive.
“If Africa does not control its logistics,” he added, “it does not control its trade.”
Women dominate Africa’s informal economy, accounting for 80 to 90 percent of informal businesses. Despite this, they face some of the toughest barriers to finance.
Dr. Daniel McCauley described this gap as an economic inefficiency, not merely a gender issue.
Through the McDan Group’s interest-free loan initiative, more than 5,000 women entrepreneurs have received support to formalize, expand, and scale their businesses.
At the same time, Africa’s youth population continues to surge. Each year, millions enter the labour market, yet formal jobs remain limited.
“The answer cannot be employment alone,” he said. “The answer must be enterprise.”
Dr. McCauley concluded with a clear call to action:
• Governments must remove trade barriers and simplify regulations
• Investors must design financial products that truly work for SMEs
• Banks and development finance institutions must share risk and unlock long-term capital
• The private sector must invest in logistics, infrastructure, and connectivity
If Africa gets this right, the impact will go far beyond trade statistics. Jobs will scale. Regional value chains will strengthen. Industrialization will accelerate.
In that future, a fashion entrepreneur in Nairobi or an agro-processor in Kigali will no longer think locally. “They will think African,” Dr. Daniel McCauley said. “And they will trade African.”
Africa’s single market, he concluded, must now move from conversation to commerce and from promise to prosperity.
