A new World Bank report says Africa’s next major economic gains will depend less on signing new integration agreements and more on making existing commitments work, warning that persistent domestic barriers, inefficient logistics and fragmented regulations continue to prevent African economies from functioning as a single market.
Released on August 28, 2026, the report, Integrating Africa: From Threads to Hubs, estimates that deeper liberalisation of transport, telecommunications, financial and professional services could increase services trade within the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) by about 60–64% by 2035.
The report was launched at an event co-hosted by the African Union Commission, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the World Bank Group, with the institutions calling for greater emphasis on implementation of existing continental commitments.
Currently, intra-regional trade accounts for only about one-fifth of Sub-Saharan Africa’s total exports. According to the report, expanding this share could strengthen regional value chains that tend to be more diversified and manufacturing-intensive than Africa’s exports to global markets, which remain heavily concentrated in commodities.
Significantly, the World Bank estimates that about 60% of Africa’s trade costs originate from unilateral or “behind-the-border” barriers that individual governments can address themselves. These include customs delays, inefficient logistics, restrictions on transport, fragmented standards, barriers to services and inadequate infrastructure.
This means African governments do not necessarily have to wait for another round of continental negotiations to make substantial progress. Measures including electronic single windows, risk-based border inspections, more competitive freight markets, simpler rules of origin and opening transport, financial and professional services could produce immediate reductions in the cost of doing business across borders.
“Africa has a continental free trade agreement. The focus is now implementation,” said Ndiamé Diop, World Bank Vice President for Eastern and Southern Africa.
Diop said the objective is to connect Africa’s 54 economies into an integrated continental market of about 1.5 billion people, while developing regional production hubs capable of attracting investment and generating employment at scale.
African Union Commission Deputy Chairperson Amb. Selma Malika Haddadi similarly stressed that continental integration cannot be delivered by a single institution, calling for coordinated action involving the AU Commission, UNECA, World Bank Group, governments, regional economic communities and the private sector.
The report proposes four priorities: building cross-border regional value chains; reducing trade and regulatory barriers; strengthening implementation and enforcement of regional trade agreements; and investing in shared infrastructure such as transport corridors, regional power markets, digital networks and payment systems.
It also argues that Africa should judge integration by practical results rather than agreements signed, including shorter border-crossing times, lower transport costs, reliable regional infrastructure, recognition of qualifications and standards across countries, increased private investment and more African businesses participating in regional value chains.
The central message is that AfCFTA has provided the continental framework; the harder task now is turning Africa’s fragmented national markets into production, investment and trading hubs that work across borders.
