ANANSE AFRICA VIRTUAL ROUNDTABLES

Building Trust and Infrastructure

For MSME Cross-Border Trade in Africa

3 December 2025

10:00 DAKAR | 11:00 LAGOS | 12:00 CAPE TOWN | 13:00 NAIROBI

Building Trust and Infrastructure

For MSME Cross-Border Trade in Africa

📅 3 December 2025 | 🕙 11:00 WAT (UTC+1)

African Creative MSMEs, particularly in fashion and design, face persistent barriers to cross-border trade—even as demand for fashion drives Africa’s e-commerce boom. In 2022, fashion accounted for nearly 20% of total B2C e-commerce in Nigeria, and by 2025 Africa’s e-commerce market is projected to reach $75 billion, with clothing and footwear among the top purchase categories.

Yet many MSMEs remain excluded from this growth, constrained by opaque customs rules, fragmented payment systems, and unreliable logistics that limit their ability to expand beyond domestic markets.

For policymakers, this presents a dilemma: while formalized cross-border trade could expand taxable revenues and advance national growth strategies, high costs and regulatory bottlenecks continue to discourage MSME participation. While AfCFTA is expected to address many of these concerns, systemic challenges persist.

This roundtable will explore how Africa’s digital and logistics ecosystem can evolve to enable MSMEs to confidently engage in cross-border e-commerce.

Meet our speakers

Samuel Mensah

Founder & CEO,

Ananse

Roberta Annan

Founder, African Fashion Foundation

Otsetswe Koboyankwe

Acting CEO, National Arts Council of Botswana

Miguel Seun Cardoso

Consultant, Export Development (SME Development Program), Afreximbank

Ifunanya Igwe

MODERATOR

Themes for the coming Roundtable

Cross Border Transactions: What solutions are needed to bring unbanked and underbanked MSMEs into regional payment systems to facilitate cross border transactions?

Logistics: How can Ananse and logistics innovators build last-mile trust, reduce costs, and improve reliability?

Cross Border Trade: How can RECs work with market access enablers like Ananse to improve cross border trade?

Partnerships: What public-private partnerships are required to help MSMEs transition from domestic to cross-border trade?

Thank you for registering for the Ananse Virtual Roundtable titled "Building Trust and Infrastructure for MSME Cross-Border Trade in Africa". You can watch the recording of the webinar here.

For any enquiries, please email events@icpublications.com.

Ananse Virtual Rountables

Conversations Shaping Africa's Creative Landscape

The conversations within Ananse Virtual Rountables are not simply about what is happening, but why and how it matters. Each session is a deep dive into a specific facet of the creative economy, treating it as a dynamic system ripe for analysis and intervention. We aim to produce not just talking points, but actionable intelligence.

The roundtables are being convened by Ananse Africa in collaboration with the research & advisory partner, Botho Emerging Markets Group and in partnership with African Business.