African countries are stepping up efforts to measure their readiness for continental trade integration, as Ethiopia and Togo this week review progress and bottlenecks under a new mechanism designed to track implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
Expert group meetings are being held simultaneously in Addis Ababa and Aneho, Togo, under the AfCFTA Implementation Review Mechanism (AFIRM), bringing together government officials, technical experts, private sector representatives, and officials from the AfCFTA Secretariat to assess how effectively countries are implementing trade commitments, particularly under the protocol governing trade in goods.
The reviews seek to accelerate economic integration through AfCFTA, a market of more than 1.4 billion people that aims to boost intra-African trade by reducing tariffs and non-tariff barriers. While many countries have ratified the agreement, implementation has varied widely, creating challenges for businesses seeking to take advantage of the continent-wide market.
In Ethiopia, stakeholders are examining findings from a national assessment that identified legal, institutional, and operational gaps affecting the country’s participation in AfCFTA. Discussions are focused on validating recommendations and identifying reforms needed to strengthen Ethiopia’s integration into continental trade flows.
The process is intended to generate actionable policy measures rather than simply produce diagnostic reports, according to officials involved in the review.
In Togo, experts are evaluating progress made in implementing AfCFTA commitments, assessing challenges encountered and considering measures to improve execution. Like the Ethiopian review, the exercise is built around data-driven recommendations that can be validated by policymakers and translated into reforms.
The reviews point to a growing recognition among African policymakers that successful continental integration depends not only on trade agreements but also on countries’ ability to monitor implementation and address obstacles that prevent businesses from accessing regional markets.
AFIRM is emerging as a key tool in that effort by creating a structured framework for assessing compliance and implementation across member states. As more countries undergo reviews, the mechanism is generating a growing evidence base that policymakers can use to shape trade reforms and identify recurring barriers across the continent.
The expansion of the review process could also provide investors and businesses with greater visibility into the pace of trade liberalization and regulatory reforms in individual countries, helping them assess opportunities arising from AfCFTA.
For Africa, where intra-continental trade accounts for a relatively small share of total commerce compared with other regions, proponents argue that rigorous implementation reviews may prove as important as the trade agreement itself in unlocking the benefits of a unified market.
The latest assessments in Ethiopia and Togo mark another step toward building a continent-wide system that measures not just commitments on paper but progress in turning them into commercially meaningful outcomes.
