Is AfCFTA the key to unlocking Africa's economic potential?

As global supply chains reroute under geopolitical pressure, Africa’s best shield — and its greatest opportunity — is a fully integrated continental market.

The global trading system is undergoing its most profound upheaval since the creation of the World Trade Organisation. Tariff shocks, competing industrial policies and geopolitical rivalry have upended decades of predictable trade flows. Yet amid this turbulence, Africa has emerged as a notable outlier: the fastest-growing trade region in the world.

According to the 2025 DHL Global Connectedness Tracker, Sub-Saharan Africa’s goods trade grew 9.6 percent in the first half of 2025 — more than any other region. Major exporters are also reconfiguring supply chains in Africa’s favour. China increased its exports to the continent by 25 percent, redirecting more value to African markets than to Europe, India or Latin America. African consumers and firms are becoming central to new global demand maps.

But this recent strength obscures a deeper structural vulnerability: Africa remains dangerously under-integrated internally. Intra-African trade accounts for only 15 percent of the continent’s total commerce, far below Asia’s 59 percent and Europe’s 68 percent. Even at its mid-2010s peak, Africa reached only 21 percent. Several factors contribute to the low share of intra-African trade, including infrastructure deficits, trade policy, political instability as well as historical trade patterns. The continent’s economies still depend heavily on external markets whose access terms can shift abruptly with foreign policy cycles. 

The September 2025 lapse in the US’ African Growth and Opportunity Act’s authorisation period, which provided eligible sub-Saharan African countries with duty-free access to the US market on over 1 800 products, is a reminder of this fragility. Preferential schemes can be well-intentioned, but they are inherently time-bound and subject to political renewal processes. For African exporters making long-term investment decisions, such uncertainty is destabilising. With the old rules-based trading order eroding, Africa must build its own stability through a coherent, continent-wide market that it controls.

This imperative is only heightened by the shift toward a more transactional global economy, which makes Africa’s fragmentation even riskier. With nearly a fifth of the world’s population but only about 5 percent of global GDP, the continent has limited leverage against major powers deploying aggressive trade and industrial policies. Africa cannot compete on weight alone; it must build resilience through deeper continental coordination.

Accelerating the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is the continent’s clearest path to building this scale and resilience. Since taking effect in 2021, the AfCFTA has made progress on protocols and pilot trading arrangements, but integration still lags. The task now is to convert political commitment into operational reality.

There are, however, encouraging signs that Africa’s integration story is turning a corner. Under the Forum Friends of the AfCFTA initiative, the AfCFTA Secretariat, the IOTA Foundation, the World Economic Forum and the Tony Blair Institute recently launched ADAPT — the African Digital Asset and Trade Platform. ADAPT provides the digital backbone that modern continental trade requires: interoperable digital identities, verifiable trade documents, trusted data flows and real-time cross-border payments. If fully deployed, it could double intra-African trade by 2035 and unlock more than US$70 billion in annual value.

A similar logic applies to industrialisation. Africa’s mineral endowment is often seen as an export advantage, but its greater potential lies in anchoring regional value chains. Yet African economies capture only a fraction of the final value because most ores leave the continent unprocessed, suppressing intra-African trade and requiring costly re-imports of refined products. The World Economic Forum’s analysis reinforces this: Southern Africa holds nearly 30 percent of global critical mineral reserves but attracts under 10 percent of exploration spending. Without substantial regional processing capacity — from copper cathodes and cobalt sulphate to manganese alloys and battery-ready materials — Africa will continue to lose value that should be created at home.

Yet the continent is also beginning to show what meaningful transformation can look like. The expansion of the Dangote refinery, set to rival the world’s largest refineries, reflects the continent’s new ambition for energy security and industrial independence. In Guinea, the long-awaited Simandou project is finally progressing, creating the prospect of a shared mining and rail corridor capable of supporting West Africa’s heavy industry. And the Lobito Corridor, linking Angola, the DRC and Zambia to Atlantic ports, is emerging as a potentially game-changing logistics backbone that integrates mineral belts with processing zones and export hubs.

This momentum is echoed in the Africa Finance Corporation’s State of Africa’s Infrastructure Report 2025, which underscores both progress and urgency. The continent holds up to $4 trillion in domestic savings, yet much of it remains in short-term instruments rather than productive investment. Power generation expanded by only 6.5 GW in 2024 — far below what is needed to support industrialisation — while more than 7 000 km of rail lines are being built or planned to connect production zones with trade corridors. The report also highlights digital infrastructure as foundational to competitiveness, reinforcing why platforms like ADAPT must be treated as strategic continental assets. Africa has the vision and early momentum; what it needs now is scale and connectivity, linking corridors to value chains and capital to transformative projects.

To convert the AfCFTA from a promising blueprint into a functioning continental market, Africa needs an acceleration agenda for 2025–2027 that prioritises execution over aspiration. The Guided Trade Initiative — now active in 17 countries — should become the default mode of continental commerce, with completed tariff schedules, harmonised customs procedures and digitised rules-of-origin verification cutting friction at the border.

At the same time, the AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol must move from negotiation to operation: interoperable payments, mutual recognition of digital identities and aligned data frameworks would allow firms to scale across services, logistics, fintech and the creative economy.

These foundations would enable the next phase — the building of regional value chains in minerals, agriculture and manufacturing — anchored by cross-border investments and aligned transport corridors. Delivering this agenda will ultimately hinge on finance.

A dedicated AfCFTA Trade Infrastructure Facility, backed by multilateral development banks, regional DFIs, sovereign wealth funds and private capital, could mobilise the investment required for ports, rail, power and digital systems at continental scale.

With the foundations in place, Africa now needs a continental implementation sprint. The AfCFTA is not a long-term aspiration but the continent’s strongest instrument for resilience, industrialization and shared prosperity.

As the global trading system is reshaped, Africa must seize this moment — or risk watching it pass by.

Chido Munyati, Head of Africa and Member of the Executive committee at the World Economic Forum.

*** The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Independent Media or IOL.

BUSINESS REPORT