Lomé, Togo — African policymakers must ensure that competition regulations under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) support industrialization, trade expansion, and economic development rather than undermine them, a senior trade official said during a continental conference in Lomé.
Addressing delegates at the ongoing BIASHARA Africa 2026 on the AfCFTA Competition Protocol, the Secretary General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat, Wamkele Mene emphasized the need for African competition policy to align with the continent’s broader economic transformation agenda.
“As we implement the competition protocol, we must pay particular attention to countries’ needs to industrialize, to trade, and ultimately to the imperative of economic development,” he said.
The remarks highlighted growing debate among African policymakers over how to balance strict competition enforcement with the need to nurture emerging industries and strengthen regional trade under the AfCFTA framework.
Wamkele Mene urged regulators and policymakers to carefully assess whether decisions related to market dominance, cartels, and competition enforcement genuinely contribute to Africa’s long-term development objectives.
“The question we should ask ourselves is whether these provisions serve the imperative of economic development for our continent,” he stated.
The intervention comes as African governments work to operationalize the AfCFTA Competition Protocol, which aims to establish common rules to prevent anti-competitive practices across the continent’s emerging single market.
Participants at the conference stressed that Africa’s trade, industrial, and competition policies must operate in coordination rather than in isolation.
According to Wamkele Mene, all economic sectors and institutions involved in implementing the AfCFTA should work toward the same strategic objective: building an integrated African economy.
He expressed hope that by the next continental gathering, African states would have made tangible progress toward harmonizing competition frameworks and advancing economic integration efforts.
The conference in Lomé brought together regulators, trade experts, regional competition authorities, and policymakers to discuss the future of competition law and market regulation under the AfCFTA.
