Africa Pushes Common Competition Rules to Protect AfCFTA From Market Abuse

 

As Africa moves closer toward building a fully integrated continental market under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), trade regulators and policymakers are warning that weak competition enforcement could become one of the biggest threats to the agreement’s long-term success.

At the ongoing Biashara Afrika summit in Lomé, senior African trade officials called for the urgent harmonisation of competition laws and regulatory systems across the continent, cautioning that monopolies, cartels and unfair market practices risk distorting trade and undermining confidence in Africa’s single market ambitions.

The discussions signal a growing shift in focus within the AfCFTA agenda. While much of the early attention centred on tariffs, border delays and logistics bottlenecks, policymakers are now increasingly turning attention toward how African markets themselves will be regulated as cross-border trade expands.

Officials say that without stronger and more coordinated competition frameworks, Africa’s economic integration drive could inadvertently create larger spaces for market concentration, abuse of dominance and anti-competitive conduct across industries.

Cross-Border Competition Challenges Emerging

Speaking at a high-level conference on competition policy and law held alongside the summit, Simeon Koffi, Director-General of the ECOWAS Regional Competition Authority, warned that anti-competitive practices are becoming increasingly difficult for individual countries to address independently.

According to him, fragmented legal systems, weak institutional capacity and inconsistent enforcement mechanisms across African economies are creating vulnerabilities within the continent’s evolving trade environment.

He identified barriers to market entry, informal economic structures, funding constraints and weak regulatory coordination as major obstacles confronting competition authorities across member states.

Koffi acknowledged that while ECOWAS has made progress in establishing regional competition frameworks, implementation remains uneven and often constrained by limited institutional resources.

“Purely national solutions have shown their limits,” he said, stressing the need for far stronger collaboration between regional regulators and the proposed continental AfCFTA competition authority.

The intervention reflects broader concerns that as African businesses increasingly operate across borders, isolated national enforcement systems may struggle to regulate market behaviour effectively within a continental trading environment.

AfCFTA’s Fairness Question

The AfCFTA is expected to create one of the world’s largest free trade areas, connecting more than 1.4 billion people across Africa.

But officials say market integration alone will not automatically guarantee equitable outcomes for businesses and consumers.

Claude Talime Abe, Director-General for Trade in Togo, argued that competition policy must become a foundational pillar supporting transparency, fairness and investor confidence within the single market framework.

He called for the harmonisation of competition principles across both national and regional systems to ensure businesses compete under clear and predictable rules.

“Competition policy and law are essential for promoting trade exchanges within a framework of fairness, security and healthy competition,” he said.

“But competition law must go beyond policy declarations and focus on practical implementation mechanisms capable of supporting sustainable regional trade.”

The concerns are particularly significant for smaller African economies and SMEs, many of which fear that larger regional firms could dominate integrated markets if competition safeguards remain weak.

Protecting SMEs and Consumers

Competition policy is increasingly being viewed as central to ensuring that the benefits of the AfCFTA are distributed more broadly across African economies.

Without effective oversight, dominant firms could potentially engage in price manipulation, restrictive agreements, predatory practices or market exclusion strategies that limit opportunities for smaller businesses.

Sectors such as telecommunications, logistics, manufacturing, transport, finance and digital commerce are already attracting particular attention because of their growing regional importance and susceptibility to market concentration.

Trade officials say the issue is no longer theoretical.

As African trade corridors deepen and regional supply chains expand, competition authorities are beginning to confront increasingly complex cross-border market dynamics that cannot easily be regulated within isolated national jurisdictions.

Building a Continental Regulatory Framework

Wamkele Mene said the AfCFTA agreement itself already provides legal foundations for coordinated competition regulation across Africa.

According to him, the competition protocol embedded within the treaty was deliberately designed to establish complementarity between national authorities, regional regulators and the continental framework.

“We have built into the treaty these legal complementarities to enable the national authorities and the regional authorities to continue their work in a complementary manner,” Mene said.

“What we are seeking to achieve is a common policy and legal framework of competition for our continent.”

The AfCFTA Secretariat believes this approach could help create more coherent market regulation while protecting both large and smaller economies participating in the continental trade arrangement.

Still, the practical challenge lies in implementation.

Institutional Gaps Remain a Major Risk

One of the recurring concerns raised during the conference was the uneven enforcement capacity across African states.

Many competition authorities continue to face funding limitations, technical gaps and weak investigative powers, even as trade integration accelerates.

Officials warn that unless institutional capacity improves significantly, regulatory fragmentation could emerge as one of the major vulnerabilities within Africa’s single market project.

The challenge is becoming even more pressing as Africa’s digital economy expands rapidly through e-commerce platforms, digital payment systems and technology-driven services operating across multiple jurisdictions.

Regulators fear that without coordinated oversight mechanisms, some sectors could quickly become dominated by a handful of large firms before continental enforcement systems fully mature.

The Next Phase of Africa’s Integration Agenda

The debate in Lomé reflects how the AfCFTA conversation is evolving beyond trade liberalisation alone toward deeper questions about governance, regulation and market structure.

For policymakers, the issue is increasingly about ensuring that Africa’s integration process produces competitive, inclusive and well-regulated markets rather than simply larger markets.

Trade experts say the credibility of the AfCFTA may ultimately depend not only on how effectively Africa removes trade barriers, but also on how successfully it protects businesses and consumers from unfair market practices within the integrated economy.