Beyond the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Treaty : The Problem of Implementation

This volume offers a timely and original examination of one of the most ambitious trade projects in modern African history: the African Continental Free Trade Area.

This volume offers a timely and original examination of one of the most ambitious trade projects in modern African history: the African Continental Free Trade Area. Moving beyond analyses centred on treaty design, negotiation, and projected gains, the chapters in this volume ask a more pressing question: how is the AfCFTA actually implemented in practice?Bringing together interdisciplinary scholarship, the book explores the institutions, actors and political conditions that shape implementation across the continent. The chapters examine the limits of trade-impact modelling, the everyday realities of non-tariff barriers and border administration, the domestic politics of trade-policy authority, coordination failures in national implementation strategies, the role of donor finance in shaping delivery, the social protection deficit within the AfCFTA architecture, and the transnational security threats that can frustrate continental integration. The authors show that the success of the AfCFTA will depend not only on formal commitments, but on how those commitments are mediated through bureaucracy, politics, planning, finance, legitimacy and security. This book will be essential reading for scholars and postgraduate students of African studies, political economy, development studies, international political economy, trade policy and public policy, as well as for policymakers and regional institutions concerned with the future of African integration.