AfCFTA at Five: Reflecting on Progress, Gaps, and the Path Ahead

As 2025 draws to a close, it is time to take stock of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and assess what has been achieved over the past five years. Since its formal launch in January 2021, the AfCFTA has been the subject of unprecedented attention from media outlets, research institutes, universities, think tanks, and policy analysts across the continent and beyond. Virtually every aspect of the agreement—from tariff liberalisation and rules of origin to industrialisation, infrastructure, and digital trade—has been scrutinised, debated, and documented. This sustained engagement has generated a rich body of analysis, often portraying the AfCFTA as Africa’s most ambitious economic integration project to date. Yet, as noted in this article, despite this intellectual and political momentum, the AfCFTA remains very much a work in progress.

Many legal instruments are still evolving, and several protocols and annexes essential for full operationalisation are either incomplete, not formally adopted, or not publicly accessible. For instance, the Protocol on Trade in Services—a core pillar of the agreement—remains unavailable on the official AfCFTA Secretariat website, while the Protocol on Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) has been adopted in principle, but its annexes are not yet formally approved. Adding to these inconsistencies, the AfCFTA website contains an incorrect link for the IPR Protocol, where the English version redirects users to the Protocol on Investment instead.

Despite these legal and institutional gaps, progress has been achieved in certain areas. AfCFTA membership has grown to 49 ratifying countries, and initiatives such as the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), launched in 2022, have enabled cross-border transactions in local currencies. Tariff schedules, exemptions, and services commitments have been submitted, laying the groundwork for trade in goods and services. However, domestic implementation has been slow and uneven, with fewer than ten countries reportedly having fully operationalised the agreement within their national legal, customs, and regulatory frameworks.

Infrastructure constraints remain a decisive bottleneck. AfCFTA officials, regional economic communities, and business organisations have consistently stressed that trade liberalisation cannot deliver tangible results without a combination of hard infrastructure—roads, ports, energy, and logistics networks—and soft infrastructure, including efficient regulations, customs procedures, and trade-related services. Persistent deficits in transport, logistics, energy, and regulatory systems continue to undermine intra-African trade, with shipping and logistics costs for perishable goods frequently absorbing 30–40 percent of export values: a figure that resonates with the findings of recent analyses such as the Africa Freight and Logistics Market Report 2025.

The incomplete resolution of Rules of Origin (RoO) continues to constrain the operationalisation of the AfCFTA. Although recent meetings of the Ministerial Council of Trade Ministers in Cairo in October 2025 achieved consensus on finalizing the RoO for key sectors, including textiles, apparel, and automotive products, the adoption of transitional implementation mechanisms for the remaining rules delay the full and effective application of preferential tariff treatment for these products, reflecting ongoing sensitivities among member states with regard to them.

From a business perspective, uncertainty remains pervasive. Initiatives such as the Guided Trade Initiative launched in 2022 sought to pilot commercially meaningful trade under AfCFTA, yet non-tariff barriers (including excessive documentation, inconsistent standards, and arbitrary border charges) have frequently proven more restrictive than tariffs. Small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, still face persistent obstacles due to limited access to trade information, high compliance costs, and complex regulatory requirements.

Taken together, these dynamics reveal a striking paradox: the AfCFTA has generated unprecedented political momentum and intellectual engagement across the continent, yet the gap between ambition and reality remains wide. Five years after its operationalisation, critical legal instruments, institutional mechanisms, and operational frameworks are still incomplete or unevenly applied, leaving the agreement’s transformative potential only partially realised. This “implementation gap” underscores the urgent need to move beyond academic discussion and media attention, and to channel efforts decisively toward legal finalisation, institutional coherence, and sustained, results-oriented action at both national and regional levels, without which the promise of a truly integrated African market risks remaining aspirational rather than tangible.