Africa’s most consequential trade forum opens tomorrow in Lomé, Togo, arriving at a moment when the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) faces growing pressure to prove that its promise of a unified continental market can survive contact with the bureaucratic, logistical and political realities still fragmenting African commerce on the ground.
Biashara Afrika 2026 will hold from May 18 to 20 at the Palais des Congrès de Lomé under the theme “Powering Africa’s Economic Transformation through the AfCFTA,” jointly convened by the AfCFTA Secretariat and the Government of the Republic of Togo. More than 1,500 participants from across Africa are expected in the capital, including policymakers, private sector representatives and investors focused on intra-African trade and AfCFTA implementation. The AfCFTA Secretariat, headquartered in Accra, hosted a Media Advocacy Workshop in Lomé today ahead of the main proceedings.
The summit arrives with AfCFTA’s core tension unresolved. Despite the agreement creating a single market of 1.4 billion people with a combined gross domestic product exceeding $3 trillion, intra-African trade remains below 20 percent of the continent’s total trade, significantly lower than levels recorded in Europe and Asia. The persistent gap reflects what analysts increasingly identify as the central challenge facing AfCFTA: the agreement has lowered tariffs on paper, but the non-tariff barriers choking African commerce remain deeply embedded.
Across ECOWAS corridors, traders still battle multiple checkpoints, overlapping customs inspections, inconsistent application of trade rules, poor road infrastructure and informal payments that persist despite regional protocols already guaranteeing free movement of goods and people. Truck drivers operating within West Africa regularly encounter numerous checkpoints along short trade routes, adding transport costs that are eventually transferred to businesses and consumers. Small traders and women involved in cross-border commerce remain among the hardest hit.
Persistent challenges including non-tariff barriers, fragmented regulations, weak infrastructure connectivity, inadequate trade finance and underdeveloped regional value chains continue to constrain progress. The AfCFTA Secretariat has increasingly acknowledged that trade agreements alone cannot deliver integration without parallel investment in digital systems, logistics modernisation and scalable trade infrastructure.
Against this backdrop, Biashara Afrika 2026 will feature high-level plenaries, breakout sessions, deal rooms, exhibitions and technical workshops covering trade facilitation, digital trade, agribusiness, manufacturing, green economy transitions and innovative financing, with particular emphasis on small and medium enterprises, women entrepreneurs and youth-led businesses.
Togo’s selection as host is both symbolic and strategic. As a major logistics and trade gateway in West Africa, Lomé offers a modern deep-sea port, improving business reforms and growing credentials as a regional commercial hub, precisely the model AfCFTA hopes to replicate across the continent.
Industry observers say the real measure of Biashara Afrika 2026 will not be the declarations produced inside the conference hall but whether governments leave Lomé prepared to dismantle the administrative barriers that continue to fragment African markets. For Ghana and other ECOWAS members sitting at the intersection of AfCFTA’s ambitions and its implementation gaps, that question is unlikely to wait much longer for an answer.
