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Will Africa’s Continent-Wide Free Trade Deal Actually Exist Beyond Paper?

Will Africa’s Continent-Wide Free Trade Deal Actually Exist Beyond Paper?
African leaders, along with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, at an African Union summit meeting, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Jan. 30, 2017 (AP photo by Mulugeta Ayene).

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent.

What good is an African free trade deal that doesn’t include the continent’s two largest economies?

That’s the question economists are asking after both Nigeria and South Africa refrained from joining the 44 countries that signed onto the African Continental Free Trade Area, or ACFTA, during a summit meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, on Wednesday. Though they were not the only holdouts, they were by far the most significant. Taken together, the two countries represent one-third of Africa’s gross domestic product and one-fifth of its population.

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