FAQ

You must become an ICOYACA Champion before you can begin the process of starting a
new chapter. Please email icoyaca@youlead.africa for more information.

ICOYACA is affiliated to YouLead Africa so for as long as you are a Champion, you
automatically become a YouLead Africa Ambassador. You will receive emails informing you
about all their programs you can engage in. For more information about Youlead Africa
programs, visit https://www.youlead.africa.

ICOYACA is dedicated to empowering young Africans with the tools and experiences that
prepare them to meaningfully engage in the AfCFTA implementation processes and to take
full advantage of the opportunities the AfCFTA presents. ICOYACA is planning to start
Model AfCFTA Negotiations to empower our youth with negotiation skills in order to
meaningfully engage in the upcoming negotiations on the Protocol of Women and Youth in
Trade when invited by the AfCFTA Secretariat. Contact the ICOYACA Secretariat to better
understand how they are planning to execute this.

ICOYACA is dedicated to connecting Africans to the engagements the AfCFTA Secretariat
announces for public attendance, including virtual meetings, hybrid events, High-Level
business Forum, conferences and more. Become a champion to receive AfCFTA Secretariat
events information and more information about these unique opportunities.

ICOYACA membership is open to all young business leaders and policy makers regardless of
your status or location for as long as you are committed to advancing Youth inclusion in the
AfCFTA and participate in intra-African trade

A Youth representative is a youth who has been chosen to represent his constituency in the
ICOYACA continental Secretariat or Country Chapter National AfCFTA Youth Committee.
He/she should be part of the organisations that form the structure of ICOYACA at both
continental and country chapter level.

Interested youth can write to ICOYACA Continental Secretariat and they will be welcomed
to ICOYACA and allocated to the irrespective country chapters. Write to us via: icoyaca@youlead.africa.

ICOYACA Continental Secretariat and Country Chapter AfCFTA Champions have a one year
mandate and they receive volunteer agreements that are renewable every three months. The
renewal of the volunteer agreement is subject to a performance appraisal and those who pass
get to keep their position. Those who fail are talked to and if changes are not made to their
performance, they are disappointed

After the one year mandate, an AfCFTA Youth Champion can renew his/her membership by
replying to the email sent by the secretariat inquiring if you would like to renew your
membership.

Yes! Champions who have no country, campus or community chapter, or wish not to be
affiliated with one, can indicate “Champion-at-Large” when theyrequest to be part of the
ICOYACA Network. You will still receive all the information sent to other champions from
the continental Secretariat.

Only students can join more than one chapter: one campus chapter and one country chapter.

ICOCAYAC is working on establishing a consortium membership where organisations who
appreciate and are interested in working with us can become our consortium members.
Partnership agreements will be signed to inform the partnership.
But if your organisation is part of those that compose the ICOYACA Structure, organisations
of your type are given one person to represent the coalition. In the meantime, your members
join our Champions network!

If you sent an email to join the ICOYACA Champions, you should receive an email receipt at
the email address that you used. The email is the only confirmation sent to a prospect
champion. Please wait for a week to receive a confirmation to join email on the mail provided
and if there is a delay, check your spam and/or that means we are over loaded and shall reply
in the second week. Short of that, kindly send a follow up email and we shall reply.

You may have received this notice if you renewed your membership after our mailing list was
generated, or you may have signed up in the past under a different email or address, creating
a separate account. If you are concerned that we did not receive your renewal or wish to check
if we have multiple accounts for you, please send an email to: icoyaca@youlead.africa.

For students graduating and were part of the campus chapters, you will be automatically
absorbed to your country chapter structures to continue doing your great work. Endeavour to
notify the Continental Secretariat on when you will be graduating.

In our increasingly youthful continent, youth and women challenges often require more
realistic solutions. Age-old challenges like unemployment, gender income inequalities and lack
of decent work have no respect for borders or boundaries, and their effects can spread rapidly.
The AfCFTA provides an opportunity for African Youth to take charge of their own
development by participating in intra-African Trade but firstly, by ensuring that their challenges are considered in the negotiation and later successful implementation processes.
So, ICOYACA was established to foster meaningful youth participation in the AfCFTA related processes.

This will safe guard youth interests hence enable African Youth enjoy the opportunities
created by the AfCFTA. ICOYACA also provides a platform to discuss and debate challenges
women and youth in trade face.

ICOYACA is not a perfect youth body, but it serves a near-perfect purpose:

To facilitate the institutionalisation of youth participation in the decision making and AfCFTA implementation processes

ICOYACA is currently not funded by any organisation and its operations is supported by its mother entity YouLead Africa. Going forward, the council hopes to be supported financially by development partners in the AfCFTA implementation landscape.

ICOYACA is promoting youth inclusion in the AfCFTA by supportingAfCFTA implementation mechanisms in each member state, beginning with establishment of the AfCFTA Youth Engagement Strategy, the AfCFTA Youth Engage Series used for awareness creation, Model AfCFTA Negotiation to equip youth with negotiations skills to meaningfully
participate in the AfCFTA among other initiatives.

Mr Ivan Atuyambe-YouLead Africa Director led the efforts to support the establishment of the council, which was an idea with no hope of operationalization but the rest as they say is history.

Starting with the council composition, ICOYACA endeavours to ensure equal representation
of both genders at the continental level and the country chapters’ level. The AfCFTA Women
and Youth in Trade Academy will have programs tailored to engage women in Trade and also
capacity building programs aimed at empowering them. Besides that, women are given the
same opportunities in the council structures as their male counterparts and they are protected
from any form of gender based violence by the council’s code of conduct.

The ICOYACA is looking forward to being officially recognised by the AfCFTA Secretariat as the youth body championing women and youth inclusion in the AfCFTA.