The African Continental Free Trade Area is the largest free trade zone in the world by member country count and the second-largest by geography. As of 2025, it is also measurably working. "Working" needs careful definition here: the distribution of benefits matters as much as their total size.

The AfCFTA Secretariat's three-year review, published in Accra, documents a 28 percent increase in intra-African trade volumes between 2021 and 2024. The composition shift is what economists have zeroed in on. Manufactured goods — processed food, textiles, electronics assembly, pharmaceuticals, light industrial products — now account for 43 percent of intra-African trade, against 28 percent in 2020. Africa has historically exported raw commodities and imported finished goods. The AfCFTA is, slowly, inverting that pattern for trade within the continent itself.

The geography tells a different story. East Africa — anchored by the Kenya-Ethiopia-Rwanda corridor and the Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali logistics route — accounts for 38 percent of the growth despite representing 22 percent of continental GDP. West Africa's gains are concentrated in the coastal economies. The Sahel — Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad — has seen essentially nothing. Partly political instability disrupting customs administration. Partly infrastructure: these landlocked economies still lack the roads and border connections to plug into functioning trade corridors. The framework exists. The roads do not.

The AfCFTA's Pan-African Payment and Settlement System processed $18 billion in transactions in 2024, settling cross-border payments in local currencies without US dollar intermediation. That cut the foreign exchange costs that had previously made intra-African trade more expensive per kilometre than trading with Europe. A structural absurdity, finally being fixed.

"The architecture is working," said AfCFTA Secretary General Wamkele Mene. "The challenge is now making sure the roads, ports, and peace required to use it exist everywhere, not just in the places that already had advantages."