African Continental Free Trade Area and African Union Agenda 2063: the roads to Addis Ababa and Kigali

ABSTRACT

While Afro-optimism emphasises the prospects of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Afro-pessimism focuses on the challenges of AfCFTA in Africa. Even as Afro-optimists and Afro-pessimists continue to dominate academic discourse and African scholarship, this article departs from these two by interrogating the free trade area in Africa through the prism of Afro-realism. The article investigated the implications of prospects and challenges of AfCFTA for achieving the objectives of regional integration as encapsulated in the aspirations of Agenda 2063 in Africa. The article sufficiently demonstrated that the AfCFTA fits into the strategic frameworks and goals of AU regional integration and 2063 Agenda. The conclusion of this article from Afro-realist prognosis, therefore, was that if the prospects are enhanced to overcome the challenges confronting the Agreement through strict implementation and enforcement, it will likely achieve the objectives of the AU regional integration agenda and the aspirations of the AU 2063 Agenda.

KEYWORDS:

• AU
• AfCFTA
• Agenda 2063
• African integration
• Afro-realism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Afro-optimism, Afro-pessimism, and Afro-realism in this context are restricted to the narrow matters of integration agenda in Africa, and not general issues of arts, humanities, economy, politics, and democracy in Africa.

2 For a more general view on Afro-optimism, see Havnevik (2015).

3 Note that this could be an estimate as exact data on intra-African trade is difficult due to the predominance of informal sector with high level of trans-border informal trade including smuggling and other illegal trades. Also, most of these cross border trades and smuggling may undermine the existing regional and sub-regional rules of origin.

4 For a more general view on Afro-pessimism, see Rieff (1998); Bassil (2011); Nothias (2012); and Sexton (2016).

5 Afro-realism in this context should not be confused with the realism of international politics or international relations.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ernest Toochi Aniche

Ernest Toochi Aniche is currently a lecturer in the Department of Political Science and a faculty member in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Federal University Otuoke (FUO), Bayelsa State, Nigeria. He was the Acting Head, Department of Political Science, Hezekiah University, Umudi, Imo State, Nigeria (2017-2019). He earned BSc, MSc and PhD degrees from the Department of Political Science, University of Nigeria, with bias in International Relations.