The Secretary General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Wamkele Mene, said on Monday that the continent’s digital economy has the potential to become a primary engine of trade and investment, as governments work to dismantle payment barriers and widen market access for businesses of all sizes.
Mene made the remarks at a private high-level luncheon organised by the French-Africa Foundation on the sidelines of the Africa Forward Summit, co-hosted by Kenya and France in Nairobi on May 11 and 12, 2026, a gathering that brought together heads of state, business leaders and development partners to advance a new model of Africa-Europe partnership.
Speaking to the gathering, Mene said implementation of the AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol and the Pan-African Payments and Settlement System (PAPSS) was opening pathways for seamless cross-border transactions in local currencies, reducing the friction that has long made intra-African commerce more expensive than trade with the rest of the world.
He argued that expanding affordable trade finance and strengthening digital payment infrastructure were not optional additions to Africa’s integration agenda but essential conditions for unlocking the full value of trade under the AfCFTA framework. His focus on payment systems reflects a broader continental push: digital payments now facilitate 78 percent of cross-border sales and 79 percent of purchases across major African trade markets, driven in part by growing adoption of PAPSS, which enables faster settlement in local currencies and reduces dependence on hard currency intermediaries.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) sat at the centre of Mene’s argument. He described the sector as indispensable to employment creation and economic output across Africa and called on governments, financial institutions, development finance institutions and private investors to coordinate action to position SMEs as a key engine of continental growth by 2035.
The Nairobi remarks came as AfCFTA implementation efforts gained momentum across multiple fronts. The AfCFTA Secretariat has projected that digital trade facilitation could double intra-African commerce by 2035 and generate 23.6 billion dollars in annual economic gains, figures that underscore the scale of opportunity Mene is pressing his partners to seize.
