The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) opened for business on January 1, 2021, promising opportunities for people from all socio-economic strata to share in economic growth in the world’s largest free-trade zone. Signed by 54 African countries and ratified by 28, with a combined gross domestic product of about U.S. $2.2 trillion, the AfCFTA is projected to generate increased cross-border trade, investment volumes, technology transfers, and income levels, lifting 30 million Africans out of extreme poverty by 2035. Ambitious at the best of times, the AfCFTA faces a multitude of hurdles to effective implementation, from weaknesses in trade infrastructure, human capital, and information and communications technology to unresolved strategic and regulatory considerations, including the absence of a shared trading currency. The hurdles – and the stakes – rise even higher as the COVID-19 pandemic shifts the patterns of interconnectedness for Africa and the world, highlighting the vulnerability of global supply chains. According to the World Bank, every region across the world has been subject to growth downgrades. The World Economic Outlook estimates that sub-Saharan African economies contracted by 3% in 2020. For African economies dependent on the exploitation and exportation of natural resources through agriculture, mining, and forestry, major supply-chain disruptions only heighten the need for self-sufficiency. Meanwhile, development assistance to the continent has stagnated. According to the United Nations Development Programme’s (2020) Human Development Data, development assistance as a percentage of gross national income has remained between 2.3% and 2.8% over the past decade and is expected to decline as developed nations reduce their aid budgets amid growing pressure from their populations to allocate resources internally. Successfully implementing the AfCFTA in the face of these pressures will require political will as well as the buy-in of ordinary Africans whose labor, capital, and knowledge will form the lifeblood of a single market.
