African governments and development financiers must accelerate investment in industrial development, trade corridors and small businesses if the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is to move beyond a legal framework and deliver tangible economic benefits, AfCFTA Secretary-General Wamkele Mene said.
Speaking in an interview during the Africa Annual Meetings 2026, Mene said the AfCFTA has largely completed its legal foundation, with 50 countries having ratified the agreement and 26 already actively trading under it.
But the next phase of the continent’s integration project will depend on financing projects that connect markets, build industries and allow African businesses to operate across borders, he said.
“We need to continue investing in industrial development in Africa,” Mene said, citing special economic zones, trade corridors and financing for small and medium-sized enterprises as priorities.
The AfCFTA agreement was signed in 2018, entered into force in 2019 and established its Secretariat in 2020. Mene said the conclusion of negotiations had provided the rules needed to support the development of a continental market.
He said, however, that reducing tariffs and eliminating trade barriers alone would not be enough. “You can reduce and eliminate barriers to intra-Africa trade all you want,” Mene said. “But if you don’t have the financing, you end up with an empty agreement that sits on the shelf and doesn’t benefit any private sector.”
Mene described the partnership between the AfCFTA Secretariat and Afreximbank as critical to implementation, pointing to operational tools including the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, the AfCFTA Adjustment Fund and the Africa Trade Gateway.
The next challenge is scaling financing for projects that operate across national borders rather than treating African infrastructure and industrial investments as isolated national ventures, he said.
Mene pointed to a proposed project involving Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Cameroon to develop an integrated digital one-stop trade ecosystem, as well as plans for a trade corridor linking Tunisia and Libya with Chad and other Central African markets.
“These kinds of projects are enabled by the rules of the AfCFTA,” Mene said, adding that they would require financing structured across countries and regions.
He also called for a rethink of how financing reaches Africa’s small and medium-sized enterprises, questioning whether capital provided through commercial banking networks is sufficiently affordable and accessible.
“SMEs are the drivers of Africa’s economy,” Mene said. “We have to make sure that as we implement the AfCFTA, we take them on board and that they see the benefits.”
Looking ahead, Mene said Africa should aim to develop two or three major cross-border projects over the next decade that could demonstrate the practical impact of continental integration.
Among the potential projects is a lithium battery manufacturing facility involving Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which could support Africa’s ambitions to capture more value from its critical mineral resources and build capacity in electric vehicle supply chains.
Mene also identified interoperable trade corridors as another potential breakthrough, saying many existing corridors function within regional blocs but are not yet integrated across the continent.
“If we can have a financing model of a trade corridor with interoperability, that will also be a very significant achievement,” he said.
The AfCFTA chief said the agreement had departed from the traditional model of economic integration by embedding industrial development, inclusion and the digital economy into its framework.
Unlike many conventional trade agreements focused primarily on market access, the AfCFTA includes legally binding commitments aimed at women and youth and a dedicated protocol on the digital economy.
Mene said Africa had been forced to adopt a different approach because traditional models of integration were not designed for the structure and challenges of African economies. “We could not do business as usual,” he said.
The success of the AfCFTA will now increasingly be judged by whether its rules can be translated into factories, infrastructure, regional value chains and businesses capable of trading across the continent, Mene said.
He urged Afreximbank and other development finance institutions to expand financing for industrial development so that the broader objectives of the continental trade agreement can become economic realities.
