As major economies retreat into protectionism and fracture global supply chains, Africa must accelerate its own economic integration to build resilience and industrial sovereignty, AfCFTA Secretary-General Wamkele Mene said at the opening of the third BiasharaAfrika forum in Togo.
“We convene during a period of unprecedented global turbulence, the multiplicity of unlawful moves, rising protectionism, geopolitical fracture in supply chains, and accelerated attempts to weaken the multilateral trading system,” Mene told delegates in Lomé. “Imperfect as its rules are, it offered a rules-based trading system, not the current trade law of the jungle that we are witnessing today.”
The Secretary-General framed the AfCFTA as Africa’s strategic response to an increasingly hostile global trading environment. While external headwinds “will test our resolve as a continent,” Mene argued they make regional integration “even more essential given the adverse global conditions.”
The data supports momentum behind the agreement. Intra-Africa trade reached $220 billion in 2024, up 12.5% year-on-year, according to Afreximbank. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimated that global trade at approximately $35 trillion in 2025 was driven largely by developing countries, with Africa among regions outperforming the global average.
Mene placed particular emphasis on shifting Africa away from raw commodity exports toward value-added production. “The sector of critical minerals beneficiation and domestic processing of Africa’s minerals must occupy our immediate attention,” he said, calling on original equipment manufacturers to invest across the continent’s economies.
Progress on rules of origin negotiations, including breakthroughs in the automotive and textiles and clothing sectors, indicates “the elements that are required to foster and build industrial development in Africa are steadily being achieved.” The percentage of manufactured and agri-processed goods in intra-Africa trade continues to rise, pointing to what Mene called “a most welcome gradual shift away from primary commodities reliance.”
Citing the late Professor Adebayo Adedeji, former Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, Mene said: “Africa has to break the apron strings of structural and relational dependence on producing a limited number of cheap primary commodities for export.”
Mene acknowledged persistent constraints including infrastructure deficits estimated at over $150 billion annually, high logistics costs, border inefficiencies, limited productive capacity, and a persistent trade finance gap. “These adverse externalities compel our continent to eliminate excessive dependence on others, to build a domestic market through the AfCFTA in order to reach the objective of economic resilience and more importantly, to advance on our noble ambition of industrial development and economic sovereignty.”
The Togolese government is hosting BiasharaAfrika2026, which Mene noted reflects the host nation’s own economic diversification success as “a vital artery of the Abidjan-Lagos corridor.”
