The Cascading Effect of AfCFTA Implementation Strategies: Opportunity or Risk?

There is an old Chinese expression that cautions against overcomplicating something that is already complicated: “to draw legs on a snake”. It describes the act of adding unnecessary detail or overdoing something that doesn’t require it. In many ways, this saying aptly describes the African policy landscape: a continent often criticized for overengineering solutions and adding complexity where simplicity might serve better. The latest example is a nascent trend to adopt "Sub-National" AfCFTA Implementation Strategies.

AfCFTA Implementation Strategies are policy documents establishing roadmaps to expedite the implementation of the AfCFTA agreement by identifying opportunities and risks, proposing interventions, and mapping pathways for integration into regional and global value chains. Importantly, these strategies are not spontaneous initiatives: they are rooted in a decision adopted by the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in Addis Ababa on 15 May 2018, which urged AU member states to develop such documents.

Since then, nearly all African countries have adopted national AfCFTA implementation strategies. Some Regional Economic Communities (RECs), including IGAD, EAC, ECOWAS, and recently SADC, have followed suit.

Evidently this multi-level planning process was not sufficiently complicated, because it has now entered a new phase: the sub-national level. Leading the charge is Nigeria, specifically the Oyo State, which is set to officially launch its Sub-National AfCFTA Implementation Strategy tomorrow: the first of its kind on the continent. This move follows months of consultations and planning since the initiative was announced in December 2024. But this raises an important question: Is this decentralization of AfCFTA implementation really necessary, or it risks overcomplicating the process?

Why Sub-National Strategies Can Make Sense

On the one hand, cascading AfCFTA strategies down to the sub-national level is a recognition of the economic reality. Trade facilitation, SME development, and industrial policy are often managed (or at least heavily influenced) by local governments. In large countries with a federal structure, or those organized into administrative units (e.g., counties) with a certain degree of autonomy from the central government - such as Nigeria, Kenya, and Ethiopia - empowering local entities could help bring the AfCFTA closer to the firms, farmers, and entrepreneurs who stand to benefit the most from this agreement. Specifically, such strategies can:

• Tailor trade policy to local economic realities (e.g., agro-processing, manufacturing clusters, logistics hubs existing in the region).
• Foster direct engagement between local governments and local private sector actors, especially SMEs.
• Help demystify AfCFTA, by shifting it from a perceived “top-down” agenda to a grassroots economic tool.
• Encourage territorial ownership and policy innovation at state or provincial levels.

The Risks: Fragmentation, Capacity, and Coordination

However, there are significant risks if sub-national implementation is not well coordinated with national frameworks:

• Policy Fragmentation: without strong oversight, divergent sub-national strategies could undermine the coherence of national trade policy, leading to conflicting priorities or even contradictory actions.
• Capacity and Resources: Many local governments lack the technical expertise, institutional capacity, and funding required to design or implement these strategies. This raises key questions: Who funds them? And how sustainable are they?
• Duplication of Effort: overlapping initiatives between national and sub-national levels risk wasting scarce resources, particularly in countries already stretched thin administratively and financially.
• Local Protectionism: There is a real danger that sub-national actors may use AfCFTA as a pretext to promote local vested interests, creating new internal barriers under the guise of promoting competitiveness or “local content”.

A possible Way Forward

To realize the benefits while avoiding the pitfalls, sub-national AfCFTA strategies must be embedded in a coherent national policy framework. Key measures include:

• Establishing strong national coordination bodies to provide oversight and ensure alignment (e.g., in the case of Nigeria, the Nigeria AfCFTA Coordination Office should oversee and ensure coordination over the implementation of these strategies).
• Making it mandatory for sub-national strategies to be aligned with the national AfCFTA strategy and linked to the latter through joint monitoring and evaluation frameworks.
• Creating peer-learning platforms to enable sub-national entities to share best practices and avoid duplicating efforts.
• Designing co-financing arrangements between central and local governments to support key initiatives, such as SME export promotion, trade logistics infrastructure, and cross-border market access.

A Promise That Risks Being Undermined by Complexity

Sub-national AfCFTA strategies have the potential to localize trade policy, empower regions, and close the gap between the agreement and its intended beneficiaries. If properly coordinated, they can make the AfCFTA more tangible for businesses, farmers, and entrepreneurs at the grassroots level.

However, this promise comes with serious risks: policy fragmentation, inefficiency, overlapping mandates, and protectionist backsliding. The key to success lies in strong coordination, integration into national frameworks, and clear resource alignment. These strategies must serve as implementation blueprints (not parallel agendas), and must be firmly anchored in national trade policy.

But here lies the paradox: African nations have a long-standing habit of adding complexity to what is already complex. Without disciplined planning, the move toward sub-national implementation risks becoming another layer of bureaucracy: well-intentioned, but ultimately counterproductive to African interests.