Overcoming the barriers for intra-African trade to double in a decade can feel like a Sisyphean task – impossible to complete. But that is the objective of the Boosting Intra-African Trade (BIAT) action plan, which targets to double flows between January 2012 and January 2022.

Many individual African nations will not, on their own, have significant production or purchasing power any time soon. To accommodate such young populations and produce or enable meaningful employment, GDP growth has to sky-rocket, not hobble along. That requires clubbing together.