The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was founded by the African Union in 2018 and commenced operating on the 1st of January 2021. Primarily, AfCFTA was created to heighten intra-African trade by providing comprehensive and mutually beneficial trading opportunities within Member States for exporters and importers. The agreement includes trading goods and services, investments, intellectual property rights, and competition policy between and within African countries. As such, AfCFTA is a flagship initiative that can promote accomplishing the African Union’s Agenda 2063, United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Science, Technology, and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA-2024) by improving employment opportunities and skillset development, as well as further enhance Africa’s industrialization aspirations through effective exports and imports. Through various infrastructural development and well-aligned policy frameworks within Member States, AfCFTA will empower previously disadvantaged populations by providing massive entrepreneurship and job creation opportunities, more especially to women and youth.[1] This will be accomplished by enabling effective exporting and importing trade linkages between approximately 1.2 billion people of the African continent.[2]

However, for the African continent to realize the benefits of the free trade opportunities, governments need to enhance the continent’s infrastructure so to enable efficient management of transportation of goods and services across the continent. This includes technology interface platforms suitable for the marketing of goods and services, and the management of financial and banking solutions between Africa’s exporters and importers. This includes export safety management systems and tracking applications during the transportation of goods and rendering of services. As such, the utilization of various digital trading technology platforms becomes necessary to promote better AfCFTA adaptation and implementation.[3] Thus, harnessing AfCFTA-enabling technology such as digital technology empowered by blockchain technology, artificial intelligence, next generation batteries, robotics, 3D printing, drone technology, among others, will enable African countries to easily harmonize the delivery of intra-continental trading of goods and services.

Notably, harnessing emerging technologies for AfCFTA will not only help eliminate paper-based port management systems between exporting and importing countries but will also allow for faster and easier communication and payment systems. Fundamentally, such systems can function through single-click interface applications that can significantly reduce trading costs and efforts for exporters. Furthermore, such technology applications will enable exporters and importers to effortlessly track goods up to delivery on desired destinations. For example, blockchain-enabled technologies such as cryptocurrencies and distributed ledger management systems can enable secure payment systems and verifiable record of transactions between exporters and importers.[4] Drones and robotics will assist with survey and management systems, and delivery of goods. Next generation batteries will help power smart cellular phones and mobile infrastructure necessary for trading platforms. Furthermore, through artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies (such as cryptocurrencies) enabled digital technologies, digital trading payments across exporters and importers can be easily executed through the click-of-a-button interface applications. In addition, such technologies can reliably integrate and coordinate various systematic digital trading platforms across the continent for financial, banking, and taxation solutions.

The African Union High Level Panel on Innovation and Emerging Technologies (APET) is encouraging  African Member States to establish and install enabling infrastructural and policy frameworks that will support the effective harnessing and utilization of innovation and emerging technologies towards accomplishing the management and execution of AfCFTA. For example, African governments should integrate different digital technology management platforms on common standards and frameworks and be incorporated into the existing export and import infrastructural systems. Such common frameworks will allow for the establishment of cross-cutting digital systems that will enable exporters and importers to seamlessly conduct business and trade across African countries, irrespective of their location. This will further be promoted by a rehabilitated information and communication technology infrastructure that offers reliable internet connection and robust broadband access across all African countries. Finally, these technologies will not only enhance technological trade platforms for AfCFTA but also establish and pioneer Africa’s trade revolution across the world.

Authors: APET Secretariat

Justina Dugbazah

Barbara Glover

Bhekani Mbuli

Chifundo Kungade

[1] https://www.tralac.org/resources/our-resources/6730-continental-free-trade-area-cfta.html

[2] African Continental Free Trade Area Completes First Month of Trading. February 2021. http://sdg.iisd.org/commentary/policy-briefs/african-continental-free-trade-area-completes-first-month-of-trading/.

[3] The promise of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). DISCUSSION PAPER No. 287. https://ecdpm.org/wp-content/uploads/Promise-African-Continental-Free-Trade-Area-AfCFTA-ECDPM-Discussion-Paper-287-December-2020.pdf.

[4] E. Ganne, Can Blockchain revolutionize international trade? World Trade Organization, Switzerland, ISBN 978-92-870-4761-8. https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/KJDPQKBE.