AUDA-NEPAD Chief Calls for Removal of Trade Barriers Across Africa

Nardos Bekele-Thomas, Director-General of AUDA-NEPAD, said Africa continues to face a paradox: while the continent has significant agricultural production and opportunities to participate in global markets, its food markets remain fragmented, leaving farmers struggling to find buyers while consumers face high and volatile prices.

Speaking at the Africa Food Systems Forum summit in Kigali, Bekele-Thomas said surplus food produced in one part of Africa too often fails to reach deficit markets elsewhere, even as the continent continues to import large volumes of food from outside Africa.

“Surplus production in one part of the continent too often fails to reach the deficit markets elsewhere,” she said.

“Even as significant volumes of food continue to be imported from outside the continent, farmers struggle to access markets. Processors operate below capacity and consumers are confronted with high and volatile food prices.”

Bekele-Thomas said the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) provides an opportunity to address these structural weaknesses by integrating African food markets and removing barriers to intra-African agricultural trade.

But she stressed that the success of the continental trade agreement should ultimately be measured by whether African agricultural products are actually moving more freely across borders.

“The measure of success will ultimately be whether this integration leads to increased trade in intra-African agricultural products across our borders,” she said.

A key part of that effort, she said, should be the development of food corridors linking agricultural production zones with processing centres and high-demand or deficit markets.

Bekele-Thomas said food corridors could turn the ambition of a single African market into tangible trade flows while reducing post-harvest losses, transport and transaction costs and strengthening regional supply chains.

They could also help African food systems become more resilient to climate shocks and disruptions in global markets.

“In so doing, food corridors have the potential to transform agriculture from a largely subsistence activity into a competitive source of enterprise, job creation and, of course, exports,” she said.

However, she warned that physical infrastructure alone would not be enough.

African countries need interoperable customs systems and greater investment in transport and logistics, while development finance institutions should play a bigger role in financing the infrastructure needed to move food efficiently across borders.

The challenge, she said, cannot be solved by individual countries acting in isolation because agricultural value chains increasingly cross national boundaries.

“Production may be competitive in one country, processing capacity located in another and the strongest market opportunity found elsewhere,” Bekele-Thomas said.

“Our policy and investment responses must therefore reflect the continental nature of the value chains that we are seeking.”

She welcomed Rwanda’s leadership in advancing the AfCFTA agricultural trade agenda, particularly efforts to prioritise agricultural value chains, increase value addition and attract investment into competitive continental value chains.

But she said the priority now must shift from policy commitments to implementation.

“The focus must now be on implementation and action,” she said, calling for investment to be mobilised towards commercially viable food corridors and for the constraints preventing them from reaching scale to be addressed.

She also urged stronger collaboration among governments, the private sector, development finance institutions, smallholder farmers and large-scale producers.

For Bekele-Thomas, unlocking intra-African agricultural trade will require a coordinated effort to remove both tariff and non-tariff barriers while increasing value addition within the continent.

“Our collective effort therefore must focus on removing the constraints that prevent African agricultural products from moving competitively across borders,” she said.

“We must increase value addition as a matter of priority and ensure that we eliminate all intra-African barriers to trade, whether they are tariff barriers or non-tariff barriers.”

Her remarks come as African governments and development partners increasingly focus on transforming the continent’s food systems from fragmented national markets into integrated regional and continental value chains.

The AUDA-NEPAD chief said food corridors could provide a practical mechanism for connecting priority agricultural value chains to regional markets, investment and trade, helping translate Africa’s agricultural potential into commercially viable opportunities for farmers and businesses.