How a conceptual shift in African trade thinking is reframing regionalism as a tool for governing shared risk - not merely expanding market.
By Mark-Anthony Johnson Every passport tells a story of belonging. In the world of trade, goods have their own version – a set of technical criteria...
By Danilo Desiderio Trade is often framed in abstract terms – GDP growth, tariff schedules, and balance-of-payments statistics – but for millions of small-scale entrepreneurs in...
By Ziad Hamoui Multilateral Development Banks now account for more than half of Africa’s net financial flows – a 124 percent increase that is fueling one...
The continent's visa regime is not a footnote to its economic ambitions - it is a direct contradiction of them.
By Ziad Hamoui Africa controls roughly 30 percent of the world’s mineral reserves. By mid-century, its population will surpass 2.5 billion, making it home to the...
By John Kourkoutas Everyone, it seems, is talking about China’s ports in Africa. Policymakers, investors, and analysts have spent years debating Beijing’s coastal ambitions – the...
By Ziad Hamoui Building roads is the easy part. The real obstacle to regional trade lies in the invisible infrastructure that no construction crew can fix....
By Ziad Hamoui Africa is projected to be the world’s fastest-growing region in 2026, expanding at 4.0–4.3 percent according to the United Nations World Economic Situation...
By Ziad Hamoui Ghana’s president is right to call current trade arrangements neo-colonial. But diagnosis without execution changes nothing. Ghana produces the cocoa. Switzerland pockets US$130...
By Danilo Desiderio The proposition that Africa’s single market will collapse without a supranational court is simultaneously persuasive and fundamentally flawed. Persuasive, because it accurately diagnoses...
By Danilo Desiderio At the World Economic Forum in Davos, a provocative thesis emerged from the corridors of global finance: Africa’s 1.3 billion people represent potential,...
By Ziad Hamoui When more than 60 percent of cross-border trade deliberately avoids official channels, something has gone profoundly wrong with our customs systems. Ghana’s first-ever...
By Ziad Hamoui Every year, somewhere between US$10 billion and US$24 billion worth of goods crosses African borders in what the United Nations Economic Commission for...
By Ziad Hamoui Official trade statistics capture barely a sixth of West Africa’s actual regional food trade. This massive data gap is undermining food security and...
By Ziad Hamoui 2025 will be remembered as the year West African trade infrastructure graduated from PowerPoint presentations to bulldozers and rail tracks. After decades of...
By Jastine Martine The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) promises to unite 1.4 billion people across 54 countries into a US$3.4 trillion market. On paper,...
By Kelly Mua Kingsly Africa proclaims the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) as the world’s largest free-trade zone, spanning 1.4 billion people across 54 countries...
By Dr. Princess C. Mutisya Africa stands at a pivotal crossroads. The dream of a truly integrated continent – bound by one passport, one customs regime,...
By Dishant Shah When Ethiopia and Djibouti inaugurated the 752-kilometer (467-mile) Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in 2018, it was heralded as a bold infrastructure bet. Today,...
By Danilo Desiderio Four years after its historic launch, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) remains a promise more than a practice. Conceived as the...
By Danilo Desiderio In many African economies, a familiar proverb echoes through bustling markets and border towns: “When the lion does not hunt, the hyena will...
By Danilo Desiderio “To draw legs on a snake” – a Chinese proverb warning against unnecessary embellishment – is more than a cautionary tale about overdesign....
By Danilo Desiderio In 1748, the French philosopher Montesquieu made a prescient observation in The Spirit of Laws: “Peace is the natural effect of trade.” More...
By Ziad Hamoui In a transformative step for regional economic integration, Nigeria and Benin have formalized a landmark Framework for Enhanced Economic Cooperation – a strategic...
By Danilo Desiderio On February 7, 2025, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) officially presented a Time Release Study (TRS) analyzing the primary trade barriers along...
