Report advocates shift from trade links to production hubs
Washington, USA, 28 August 2026 -/African Media Agency (AMA)/ – A new World Bank report released today titled Integrating Africa: From Threads to Hubs, finds that the continent’s next major integration gains will come from making African markets work together—connecting production across borders, reducing trade and regulatory frictions, strengthening implementation of regional agreements, and delivering the infrastructure, services, and jobs that regional markets need.
Launched today at an event co-hosted by the African Union Commission, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), and the World Bank Group, the report sets out a practical agenda for converting continental commitments into functioning markets and regional production hubs. It calls for interoperable customs, standards, payment, transport, energy, and digital systems, so firms can source, produce, finance, and sell across borders through predictable rules and procedures.
Integrating Africa estimates that deeper liberalization of transport, telecommunications, financial, and professional services could raise the trade of services within the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement area (AfCFTA) by about 60–64% by 2035. It would also help countries trade more within the region and create more and better jobs. Currently, intra-regional trade represents roughly one-fifth of Sub-Saharan Africa’s total exports. Increasing that share would boost value chains that are typically more diversified and more manufacturing-intensive than exports to global markets, which remain concentrated on commodities.
Many of the largest barriers to regional integration are within countries’ own control. About 60% of estimated trade costs are unilateral or behind the border, reflecting customs delays, inefficient logistics, transport restrictions, fragmented standards, services barriers, and weak infrastructure. This means governments can unlock a large share of the gains from integration through domestic reforms without waiting for new regional negotiations. Electronic single windows, risk-based inspections, more competitive freight markets, simpler rules of origin, stronger standard institutions, and more open transport, financial, and professional services can all reduce costs immediately.
To deliver tangible integration outcomes, the report organizes its recommendations around four mutually reinforcing priorities: building regional value chains that connect production across borders; reducing trade and regulatory frictions; deepening, implementing, and enforcing regional trade agreements; and delivering regional public goods, including transport corridors, power markets, digital networks, and payment systems.
“Africa has a continental free trade agreement. The focus is now implementation,”said Ndiamé Diop, World Bank Vice President for Eastern and Southern Africa*.* “We are working with the AfCFTA Secretariat, other African institutions, governments, and the private sector to connect 54 economies into an integrated continental market of 1.5 billion people, with regional production hubs that can attract investment and create jobs at scale.”
“No institution can deliver Africa’s integration agenda alone. The African Union Commission, UNECA, the World Bank Group, Member States, regional economic communities, and the private sector must work together to translate continental frameworks into practical investments and reforms that make regional integration work for businesses and citizens,” said H.E. Amb. Selma Malika Haddadi the Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission.
The report calls for progress to be measured through outcomes that tangibly benefit people and firms: shorter border-crossing times, lower logistics costs, more reliable regional infrastructure, more non-tariff barriers resolved, more qualifications and standards recognized across markets, greater private investment, and more firms participating in regional value chains.
Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) on behalf of Word Bank Group.
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