AfCFTA: Time to Move from Commitment to Delivery

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) stands as one of the most ambitious integration projects ever undertaken by African nations. It promises to connect 1.4 billion people across 55 countries into a single market worth over $3.4 trillion. Yet, nearly four years after its launch, implementation remains uneven and hesitant, revealing a widening gap between commitment and delivery. The Guided Trade Initiative (GTI), introduced in October 2022, was designed as a proof of concept to accelerate and facilitate trade under AfCFTA rules. Initially involving eight pilot countries, and later expanded to include major economies such as Nigeria and South Africa, it aims to identify bottlenecks, test customs and regulatory procedures, and draw practical lessons for continent-wide implementation.

However, the initiative risks now to become a substitute for full implementation rather than a stepping stone toward it. It is essential to prevent this temporary pilot from solidifying into a semi-permanent phase that can delay the AfCFTA’s complete rollout, as noted in this article. The risk is  more than real, because - borrowing from a Parliamentary debate at the East African Legislative Assembly - (page 7): "Africa is notorious for transitional periods that become permanent".

The AfCFTA has now reached a stage where declarations, protocols, and roadmaps are no longer sufficient. The political commitment is in place, and the institutional framework has been established. What remains is the demanding task of execution: ensuring that trade truly flows, businesses reap tangible benefits, and citizens experience real, measurable improvements.

A new report from SAIIA summarizes the invaluable lessons provided by the GTI on the operational realities of implementation. This is not the first assessment of the GTI. A study made by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Institute in 2024 already examined early experiences and challenges faced by various African States in the implementation of the initiative, with lesson learned. The SAIIA report builds on and complements that earlier work, confirming that tariff liberalization, while a necessary foundation, is insufficient on its own to transform Africa’s trade landscape. The continent’s real barriers to integration lie in non-tariff constraints: weak productive capacity, logistical bottlenecks, fragmented regulations, and inadequate infrastructure. The success of the AfCFTA will increasingly depend on addressing these structural challenges, with tariff line adjustments playing a secondary role.

Efficient logistics and connectivity remain critical determinants of competitiveness. Africa’s vast infrastructure deficit (from ports and roads to rail and digital networks) continues to restrict the smooth movement of goods as the backbone that supports trade and mobility remains underdeveloped. Specifically, implementation of the GTI in countries like Ghana, Nigeria, and Mauritius has been hindered by port congestion, inconsistent customs clearance procedures, and weak air and sea connectivity. These obstacles erode the reliability required for regional value chains and constrain the capacity to handle rising trade volumes. Investment in corridor efficiency, multi-modal logistics, and digital trade systems must therefore be prioritized alongside tariff reduction. But physical infrastructure alone will not suffice. Institutional coordination (across customs services, standards authorities, and trade ministries) is equally vital. Early experiences under the GTI exposed serious institutional weaknesses. Many customs officials, especially in Nigeria, were unfamiliar with AfCFTA procedures; national implementation committees were often under-resourced or inactive; and several countries struggled to issue AfCFTA certificates of origin. These gaps underscore the urgent need for interoperable, digital systems and better inter-agency coordination. Institutional readiness is thus the backbone of implementation: without it, the AfCFTA’s legal and policy frameworks risk remaining underutilized.

Paradoxically, global economic turbulence may offer Africa a strategic opening. As geopolitical tensions intensify and potential U.S. tariff shocks and supply chain disruptions loom, the continent has a unique opportunity to strengthen its trade resilience through deeper intra-African integration.

Accelerating AfCFTA implementation would enable African economies to reduce dependence on external markets, build regional value chains, and anchor growth in domestic and continental demand. The Guided Trade Initiative should therefore remain a learning platform, not a comfort zone. Only by scaling up its lessons into full, continent-wide implementation can the AfCFTA truly evolve from commitment to delivery, and ultimately, from vision to reality.