The International Trade Centre, with funding from the European Union, is developing a new Rules of Origin self-assessment tool to be integrated into the African Trade Observatory (ATO). This is an important development for the implementation of the AfCFTA, and potentially much more than a digital compliance tool. The mechanism is comparable to the EU's ROSA (Rules of Origin Self-Assessment) tool, which helps EU businesses determine whether their products meet the applicable rules of origin to benefit from preferential treatment under the various trade agreements that the EU has concluded with third countries and economic blocs. The tool is aimed at addressing a key challenge faced by African businesses: the fact that the AfCFTA operates in parallel with a complex and overlapping architecture of rules of origin associated with other Regional Economic Communities: including the EAC, COMESA, SADC, ECOWAS, ECCAS, CEMAC and other trade arrangements.

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For decades, industrial policy has focused on one central question: what industries should country build? That question remains important. But in a world shaped by geopolitical fragmentation, trade wars, supply chain disruptions, technological rivalry, and recurring shocks, it is no longer sufficient. The real challenge is no longer simply building competitive industries. It is ensuring that they remain competitive when technologies, markets and geopolitical conditions change. In this article, published on the Eurasia Review, the concept of Trade Systems Plasticity is extended to industrial policy. The central argument is that competitiveness no longer depends only on what economies produce. It increasingly depends on whether the trade systems surrounding productive capabilities (institutions, logistics, regulations, digital connectivity, and commercial relationships) ccan continuously adapt to sustain efficient production and respond to changing economic and geopolitical conditions. Industrial policy builds productive capabilities, but Trade Systems Plasticity explains how to preserve their competitiveness under conditions of persistent uncertainty. Perhaps the defining competitive advantage of the twenty-first century will not belong to the economies that are most optimized, but to those whose trade systems are designed to dinamically adapt to continuous change.