For years, Africa has spoken about the potential of a single continental market as though the market itself were the destination. The Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is now forcing a more practical question, which is, what will African countries actually do with the market they have created?
AfCFTA brings together 54 participating African countries and a market of about 1.4 billion people, with a combined GDP of roughly $3.4 trillion. Yet intra-African trade remains only about 14% of the continent’s total trade, according to the World Bank, compared with much higher levels in Europe and Asia. This gap tells us something important - that Africa’s biggest trade opportunity may still be Africa itself.
The promise of AfCFTA, therefore, is more than eliminating tariffs but about changing how Africa produces, moves, finances and consumes goods and services.
It is important to note that there has been real progress. The agreement entered into force in 2021, and the Guided Trade Initiative provided an important test of whether businesses could actually trade under AfCFTA rules. By early 2026, more than 12,000 Certificates of Origin had reportedly been issued and notified to the AfCFTA Secretariat, according to data from the AfCFTA Media Hub, while implementation has begun shifting from negotiating the agreement's architecture to making it work for businesses.
Digital infrastructure is also beginning to make continental trade more practical. The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), developed by Afreximbank in collaboration with the African Union and AfCFTA Secretariat, had expanded by the end of 2024 to 16 central banks and 150 commercial banks.
By enabling payments across participating countries in African currencies, PAPSS can help address one of the less visible but significant barriers to intra-African commerce: the cost and complexity of cross-border payments. But progress should not be confused with completion.
According to data from International Trade Administration (ITA), African businesses still encounter non-tariff barriers, fragmented regulations, cumbersome customs procedures, inadequate transport infrastructure and difficulties accessing trade finance. Rules of origin also remain a practical issue for important categories such as automobiles and textiles. For a small manufacturer trying to sell across three or four African markets, the difference between a continental trade agreement existing on paper and working at the border can determine whether expansion is commercially viable.
This is where the future of AfCFTA will be decided.
The World Bank estimates that deeper implementation could increase Africa’s income by 9% by 2035, equivalent to about $571 billion, create 18 million additional jobs and help 50 million people move out of extreme poverty. It also estimates that stronger integration could increase intra-African exports by 109%, particularly in manufactured goods.
Those figures should change the way we discuss AfCFTA. The question is no longer whether integration is desirable. The question is whether African governments and businesses are prepared to build the productive capacity required to take advantage of it.
A successful AfCFTA will require African countries to look beyond exporting commodities and importing finished products. It means building regional value chains in agriculture, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, energy, technology and creative industries. It means making it easier for an African company to establish itself in another African market, hire talent across borders, receive payments, protect its intellectual property and move its products efficiently.
It also means treating trade policy as an enterprise issue, rather than something confined to ministries and diplomatic meetings.
This is why conversations about AfCFTA must increasingly bring governments, businesses, investors, financiers, innovators and young Africans into the same room. The people who experience the practical barriers to trade should have a stronger voice in determining how those barriers are removed.
That conversation is particularly relevant to Elevate Africa’s 2026 Annual Convening in Accra, themed “Africa: Defining Her Future.” Taking place on October 28–29, the convening will bring together policymakers, business leaders, investors, creatives, youth leaders and the diaspora, with Trade Governance & Economic Integration among its core tracks. Its AfCFTA Trade Governance Dialogue and Digital Trade & Trade Finance Panel provide an opportunity to move the conversation from the promise of continental integration towards the institutional and commercial decisions required to deliver it.
Accra is also an appropriate setting for that conversation. Ghana hosts the AfCFTA Secretariat, making the city one of the institutional centres of Africa’s trade integration project.
The next phase of AfCFTA needs measurable commitments. Governments should accelerate the domestic implementation of agreed protocols, remove non-tariff barriers and make customs and standards systems more interoperable. The AfCFTA Secretariat, under Secretary-General Wamkele Mene, must continue pushing implementation towards measurable outcomes for African businesses rather than stopping at legal and institutional milestones. Afreximbank should continue expanding PAPSS and trade-finance instruments that allow African businesses to transact across borders. Regional economic communities must ensure that existing integration arrangements reinforce rather than complicate the continental framework.
The private sector also has a role. African businesses should begin treating the continent as a market to be built for, not merely a collection of individual national markets. Investors should back companies capable of building regional supply chains, while entrepreneurs need better access to market intelligence, finance and technology that can support cross-border expansion.
Also, political leaders, including Nigeria’s Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Jumoke Oduwole, who assumed the chairpersonship of the AfCFTA Council of Ministers, succeeding Egypt, have an opportunity to turn political support for integration into practical delivery.
Oduwole’s tenure provides Nigeria with an opportunity to push implementation, regional value chains, digital trade and access to trade finance higher up the continental agenda.
The future of AfCFTA will ultimately be measured by whether an African business can move from Lagos to Accra, Nairobi to Kigali, or Cairo to Johannesburg with fewer obstacles, lower costs and greater certainty. That is the real test of a single African market.
As Africa gathers in Accra for Elevate Africa’s “Africa: Defining Her Future,” the challenge should be clear: we must move AfCFTA from an ambitious continental promise to an everyday economic reality. The institutions exist, the market exists, the opportunity exists. What comes next is execution.
Photo source: GovernmentZA