The International Trade Centre (ITC) has called for accelerated, coordinated action to embed Africa’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) at the heart of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). It warned that the continent’s window to leverage the agreement for structural economic transformation may narrow if key gaps in infrastructure, awareness, and investment climate are not urgently addressed.
External Pressures Mounting on African Economies
Speaking at a high-level forum on AfCFTA implementation, ITC Executive Director Pamela Coke-Hamilton underscored the compounding pressures facing African economies. These include the COVID-19 pandemic, war-driven oil supply disruptions, uncertainties surrounding the renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), and the impact of US tariff policies. Against this backdrop, she positioned the AfCFTA not merely as a trade agreement but as a framework for Africa to redefine its relationship with the global economy on its own terms, with the private sector in the driving seat.
“The AfCFTA offers a framework to take back control, for the long term. African countries must harness it to diversify markets, reduce external dependence and build competitive regional value chains; prioritising sectors like critical raw minerals and pharmaceuticals where the continent holds the greatest comparative advantage,” she said.
Untapped Export Potential
According to data from the ITC, there is $22 billion in untapped intra-African export growth potential, a figure she cited as evidence that the internal market is ripe for strategic development. Realising that potential, she argued, requires countries to make investment in African manufacturing and transport corridors more viable through harmonised investment policies, economies of scale, and targeted facilitation reforms.
She added that ITC is implementing its One Trade Africa Initiative in close coordination with the AfCFTA Secretariat. Central to this work is the Africa Trade Competitiveness and Market Access (ATCMA) Programme, co-implemented with UNIDO across five Regional Economic Communities: COMESA, the EAC, ECCAS, ECOWAS, and SADC, as building blocks of the continental agreement.
Programme Details
Explaining the programme, she said it identifies high-potential value chains and the most pressing private sector bottlenecks within them, ensuring continental balance across at least two RECs and five countries per value chain. “From there, ITC works at the firm level on quality compliance and export readiness under AfCFTA rules and at the systemic level, strengthening business support organisations and engaging policymakers to improve the regulatory and investment environment.”
Regional roadmaps are currently being developed for vaccines and electric vehicle batteries, two sectors identified as priority areas for Africa’s economic transformation, in consultation with private sector actors, non-profits, consumers, investors, policymakers, and international agencies.
Awareness and Uptake Deficit
Despite the agreement’s potential, ITC data reveal a significant awareness and uptake deficit. Only 40 per cent of respondents in the PAFTRAC CEO Survey Report said they knew and understood the AfCFTA well. Approximately three in four businesses reported that the agreement had had little to no impact on their firms to date.
She pointed to the AfCFTA Private Sector Engagement Strategy and the Biashara Afrika platform as critical tools for closing this gap, spaces where MSMEs can connect with buyers and investors, showcase products and deepen their understanding of the agreement’s provisions. She described agribusiness, a priority value chain under the AfCFTA, as a litmus test for whether the agreement moves from aspiration to generational impact.
Call for Long-Term Structural Thinking
Concluding with a call for long-term structural thinking over short-term wins, with international aid shrinking and trade becoming increasingly transactional, she argued that African countries must focus on the fundamentals that attract investors: quality infrastructure, a skilled workforce and a predictable, transparent regulatory environment.
“Aid is shrinking and trade is becoming more transactional. We cannot expect that to reverse itself overnight and it may be permanent. Instead, African countries must focus on the fundamental requirements that investors look for, all steps that support local value addition and pave the way to making sure the AfCFTA truly delivers on its promise,” she said.
She pledged the ITC’s support to equip MSMEs and the institutions that serve them with the capacity, intelligence, networks and readiness required to trade in practice and in doing so, de-risk and amplify the impact of investments in African trade.
