News

Reconsidering Supply Chain Governance in Africa: From Cognitive Dependence to Distributed Governance Systems

Sunday, 03 May 2026 06:26

The current disruptions across the Gulf (spanning the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea) have revealed a deeper structural condition affecting Africa: a governance failure embedded in the very architecture through which the continent’s logistics flows are integrated into global trade systems. What is unfolding in 2026 is not only logistical volatility but systemic reconfiguration. Security risks in the Red Sea have forced sustained rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope, adding 10–20 days to Asia–Africa and Asia–Europe trade lanes, while amplifying freight rates, insurance premia, and energy costs. At the same time, instability in the Gulf has disrupted fertilizer supply chains, tightened energy flows, and constrained air cargo capacity through key aviation hubs. The cumulative effect is not delay, but distortion: inflationary pressure in food-importing economies, stress on humanitarian corridors in the Horn of Africa, and renewed external fragility in import-dependent economies. Yet the critical issue is not disruption itself. It is where disruption is governed.

The Southern Axis: How Africa and Latin America Could Redefine Global Trade

Saturday, 25 April 2026 05:30

At the margins of the World Trade Organization’s MC14 in Yaoundé, a quiet idea started to took shape: Africa and Latin America may be moving toward a new axis of global trade. South–South trade now accounts for roughly a quarter of global flows, yet exchanges between these two regions remain minimal. The real constraint is not geography, but weak logistics: limited shipping routes, thin air links, and fragmented digital systems. In today’s economy, distance is defined by connectivity. What makes this alignment plausible is a deeper compatibility. Both regions operate through hybrid economic systems where formal markets coexist with trust-based, relational networks. This shared logic (often overlooked in conventional trade analysis) can facilitate business linkages where institutional frameworks alone fall short. Read our article on Latinoamérica21 (available also in Spanish and Portuguese).

Markets outgrowing states show the scale dilemma of African integration

Tuesday, 21 April 2026 15:25

Africa’s economic challenge is not a lack of entrepreneurial energy or ambition. It is a structural mismatch between the scale at which its markets operate and the scale at which political authority is exercised, writes Danilo Desiderio. Read on the London School of Economics and Political Science blog.

Integrating Africa: From Threads to Hubs

Sunday, 12 April 2026 09:32

This publication stands out as far more than a conventional report on regional integration. Integrating Africa: From Threads to Hubs has the potential to become a reference framework for the next generation of African trade and industrial policy. What makes this report particularly compelling is its alignment with the deeper ambitions of the African Continental Free Trade Area. It moves beyond traditional trade liberalisation narratives by integrating value chain thinking into regional policy and reframing integration as a tool for job creation, industrialisation, and structural transformation.

Smarter Rules Unlock Small-Scale Trade and Better Livelihoods across Kenya and Ethiopia

Thursday, 02 April 2026 06:42

This article published by the World Bank offers a thoughtful and timely examination of how policy design can reshape regional commerce in East Africa. Co-authored by Danilo Desiderio and Ankur Huria, it goes beyond traditional trade policy discourse to highlight how practical rule design can fundamentally impact the lives of small‑scale traders and the economies they support. The article grounds its analysis in the real experiences of traders who must navigate bureaucratic hurdles every day as they cross the Moyale border, between Kenya and Ethiopia. This human focus immediately distinguishes the piece from more abstract policy discussions and reminds readers that trade facilitation is not an exercise in economics alone, but one with direct implications for livelihoods.