Accra, 18 March 2025. As Africa marks five years since the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement came into force, H.E. Hailemariam Desalegn Boshe, TradeMark Africa’s Board Chair and former Prime Minister for Ethiopia, delivered a thought-provoking public lecture on ‘AfCFTA as a Catalyst for Agenda 2063: Seizing Opportunities in a Changing World’.
During the hybrid session broadcast live from AfCFTA Secretariat offices in Accra, Ghana, H.E. Desalegn explored successes and delivered provocative arguments on why Africa struggles to trade with itself. The outlook for the AfCFTA remains overwhelmingly positive with infrastructure development, such as improved transport and communication networks, underway to support increased trade activities. In addition, between 2017 and 2023, intra-African trade saw and estimated 27% increase, reaching approximately $190 billion a sign of progress in reginal trade integration, despite persistent structural challenges. However, intra-African trade at just 15% of total African trade African countries have historically traded less with each other than other regions due to binding constraints including but not limited to deficits in trade-related infrastructures, overlapping and multiple Regional Economic Communities (RECs), lack of complementarity of goods and services and supply side constraints.
He outlined practical strategies to reshape both narrative and approach to Africa leadership on self-reliance, with trade as the driving force. At a critical juncture, amid ongoing socio-economic shocks such as global supply chain disruptions and shifting donor priorities, Africa must position itself to respond to an evolving global landscape. “The past five years have seen the COVID-19 pandemic which hugely disrupted global supply chains, leading to a contraction in global trade in 2020 of over 5%. While trade rebounded, geopolitical tensions combined with a retreat from free trade have loomed large, with global trade now undergoing the slowest growth in five decades outside global recessions. As these uncertainties unfold, they create a complex new landscape that Africa must carefully navigate to advance its economic interests,” H.E. Desalegn said.
H.E. Desalegn urged the audience to recognise a fundamental challenge that has constrained Africa’s economic transformation. “For decades, Africa has supplied the world with gold, oil, coffee, cocoa, and a host of other raw materials, only to reimport them as finished products, at a significantly higher price. This is a structural trap, keeping us at the lower end of global value chains. Yet, our own consumption patterns review a critical reality, trade agreements alone are not enough. We drink imported processed coffee. We wear imported jewellery. If we are buying these products, anyway, why are we not adding the value ourselves?” he asked.
Citing a recent International Trade Centre report, he highlighted that the biggest opportunity for intra-African trade expansion lies in industrial products such as fertilisers, minerals, beauty products, chemicals, and other manufactured goods. This should be our starting point,” he emphasised.
He further underscored the systemic barriers limiting Africa’s role in global value chains including poor infrastructure, fragmented trade blocs, with competing regulations, and limited access to financing. “I am certain everyone here will agree with me that trade agreements alone will not create jobs or build industries. That, as I have set out above, also requires the roads, ports, and financial systems that connect businesses and people. Without these, progress will be uneven, and implementation slow.”
The public lecture closed with H.E. Desalegn emphasising that the AfCFTA’s success depends on collective action. “A globally competitive Africa will come from what we produce, what we buy, and where we invest. But when we talk of building and buying African, it is not about exhorting consumers to be patriotic; it is about implementing effective trade and industrial policies, so that we build the quality, productivity capacity and regional value chains that will give consumers a compelling reason to buy African products,” he said.
“We must believe and champion a pan-African vision, because sometimes, we know national interests still override continental priorities. That means, we who have the responsibility of implementing AfCFTA together with governments, businesses, and other institutions, must stop talking and start building. He reaffirmed TradeMark Africa’s commitment to supporting AfCFTA implementation by leveraging its 15 years of experience in trade facilitation and engagement with continental and global institutions. He highlighted ongoing efforts to enhance private sector participation and strengthen regional value chains, including collaboration on trade facilitation initiatives within the AfCFTA framework. “We are proud to be working together to establish the Private Sector Unit within the Secretariat, and to deliver fish value chain programming together.”
