The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement officially entered into force on May 30, 2019, following its adoption and opening for signatures on March 21, 2018 in Kigali, Rwanda. Impressively, as of February 2025, 54 out of the 55 African Union (AU) Member States have signed the agreement. Forty-eight of the Member States have so far ratified the agreement, demonstrating heightened interest and enthusiasm in the initiative. It is estimated that, by the time all Member states complete the signing and ratification processes, AfCFTA will create a single market for goods and services for about 1.4 billion people across Africa, with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of 3.4 trillion U.S. dollars.
Analysts are projecting that a fully functional AfCFTA will significantly boost trade among African countries by removing tariffs on 90% of goods and reducing non-tariff barriers. This is expected to increase intra-African trade by over 50% in the next few years. It is further projected that AfCFTA will encourage African countries to shift from exporting raw materials to producing and trading value-added goods. This will facilitate investment flows to support industrial growth, manufacturing, and job creation across sectors such as information technology, agriculture, finance, tourism etc.
However, the journey towards AfCFTA has not been smooth sailing. Since the 1960s, the quest for African regional integration has been marked by diverse perspectives and strategies. Notably, the Casablanca bloc (led by Kwame Nkrumah, Gamal Abdel-Nasser and Sékou Touré) and the Monrovia bloc (led by William Tubman, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Felix Félix Houphouët-Boigny) advocated for distinct pathways to Africa's unity, emphasizing the continent's complex political and economic landscape. Nevertheless, the pursuance of regional integration remained centered on economic and commercial cooperation. Trade, indeed, emerged as a potent instrument for African development, from the Lagos Plan of Action to the AfCFTA.
Quite significantly, as a departure from the historical ideological dichotomy, AfCFTA embraces a non-aligned Pan-African posturing that seeks to foster unity and cooperation. AfCFTA sees continental free trade as a means to decolonize global trade in the interest Africa and its citizens. And, to be able to achieve this vision, it is essential to harness the force of diplomacy as a catalyst for intra-African and intercontinental trade in the interest of Africa.
Bilateral channels have long been the norm in the sphere of diplomacy, facilitating international transactions and nurturing diplomatic relationships. However, the scope of diplomacy has expanded in response to globalization and increased interdependence. African states' aspirations for global relevance stimulate economic diplomacy, which is propelling engagement with both traditional and non-traditional allies. It is within the context of the foregoing that the maiden edition of the African Diplomacy and Business Dialogue (AfDiB 2025) is being organized to harness the power of diplomacy as a critical scaffold in the building of AfCFTA.