Leveraging the Implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area to Address Trade Facilitation Challenges in Southern African Borders
This study undertakes a qualitative analysis to provide a comprehensive review of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) trade facilitation measures and the associated challenges of implementing them. It demonstrates how the SADC region can leverage the implementation of the AfCFTA to increase intraregional trade. Incorporating evidence from border crossing reviews, and key informant interviews of trade facilitation experts and practitioners in the SADC region, the study undertakes a detailed inductive thematic analysis of the SADC cross-border environment to investigate the potential opportunities to increase efficiency at SADC commercial borders and benefit from the AfCFTA trade facilitation measures. The analysis presents trade facilitation in the legal framework of the AfCFTA, introducing trade facilitation as a regional trade policy tool to increase intra-SADC trade. The study finds that the AfCFTA trade facilitation measures broaden the scope of preferences and bridges the gap between the segregated and segmented markets in the SADC region, thus giving SADC Member States increased market access to other African markets outside its traditional trading routes. However, the results also show that this is insufficient to eliminate the plethora of trade barriers in the region and further strengthen intra-SADC trade without complementary measures. It contributes to the literature as it proposes and validates a conceptive policy framework for effective implementation of the AfCFTA trade facilitation measures in the SADC region.
Trade facilitation, African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Implementation, Southern Africa, Southern African Development Community (SADC)
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