African Continental Free Trade Area

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is a free trade area established under the auspices of the African Union (AU). Its founding instrument, the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area, was signed in Kigali, Rwanda on 21 March 2018 at an Extraordinary Summit of the AU. The agreement entered into force on 30 May 2019 after the required number of ratifications, and trading under its preferences formally commenced on 1 January 2021.

The AfCFTA aims to create a single continental market for goods and services, with free movement of business persons and investments. Core commitments include the progressive elimination of tariffs on the large majority of tariff lines, reduction of non-tariff barriers, and liberalisation of trade in services. Subsequent protocols cover areas such as dispute settlement, investment, intellectual property rights, competition policy, digital trade, and women and youth in trade.

The AfCFTA Secretariat is hosted in Accra, Ghana. It works alongside, rather than replacing, Africa's existing regional economic communities (RECs) such as ECOWAS, EAC, SADC, COMESA, ECCAS, IGAD, AMU, and CEN-SAD, which remain the building blocks of continental integration under the 1991 Abuja Treaty.

All 55 AU member states are eligible to join. The agreement has been signed by nearly all AU members, with Eritrea the notable holdout at launch. Ratification has proceeded more slowly, and effective implementation depends on each state submitting tariff schedules, rules of origin, and services commitments.

Key challenges include divergent levels of industrial development, infrastructure gaps, customs capacity, overlapping REC memberships, and the sensitivity of revenue losses from tariff cuts for smaller economies. A Guided Trade Initiative, launched in October 2022, allowed a pilot group of states to begin commercially meaningful trade under AfCFTA preferences while technical work continued.