A recent article published on FDI Intelligence argues that the slow implementation of the AfCFTA by African countries, combined with persisting challenges like infrastructure gaps and access to finance, are stumbling blocks to the achievement of an African Single Market. On 30 May 2024, the AfCFTA agreement reached five years since its entry into force. Although trade officially commenced under the AfCFTA framework only in January 2021, it is being slowly implemented in phases, with a first important step represented by the AfCFTA Guided Trade Initiative (GTI), a pilot project aimed at testing the institutional and procedural framework within which the AfCFTA preferential trade transactions are conducted. Despite African countries have committed to remove tariffs for 90% of products, most of them have not incorporated the AfCFTA preferential tariff rates into their national tariff schedules, which is an essential condition for them to trade under the AfCFTA preferences. According to the International Trade Centre (ITC), a multilateral UN agency dedicated to support trade-led economic growth in developing countries, the full impact of the AfCFTA remains to be seen because African countries are proceeding cautiously with its implementation. The ultimate goal to be the world’s largest operating free trade area for a continent of 1.3 billion people is still far away, the article concludes.

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Reading the data of the World Wildlife Crime Report 2024 of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC), one can understand why border controls in Africa are so tight and barriers to trade so high. Sub-Saharan Africa is the paradise of illicit trade, a trade that national States try to crush through strict and some time invasive controls at borders. Only wildlife materials account for 19 percent share of seizures worldwide, putting the continent on the top of the list of the regions where this kind of illicit trafficking is more common. But illicit trade in Africa, and especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, is not limited to wildlife. The UNODC report depicts a worrying scenario where illegal firearms, drugs, smuggled gold, meat, counterfeit medications and even cash trafficking are widespread, with organized criminal networks that thrive from profits derived from these businesses. Commenting the results of an operation on illegal trafficking that covered eight African countries, the report concludes that such convergence of criminal interests in different illicit trade sectors “is an area of increasing research and concern”.

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