Integrating Africa by Competition and Market Policy

Africa has the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The agreement will lower tariffs and facilitate internal market trade on the continent, and policy makers hope that it will help lift 30 million people out of poverty. A competition protocol is now in the process of negotiation and proposals have been made ranging from a full, detailed, technical competition law as in the West to a scaffolding of regional cooperation. For the competition element of AfCFTA, this article makes a bold suggestion: Africa needs a basic but deep competition protocol, which concentrates on the priorities “at the top”: It needs to rid the continent of insidious trade-and-competition restraints at member state borders that prevent African integration, which requires a joinder of trade-and-competition violations. And it needs a voice at the top to take a stand for the continent: for example against the mega-mergers that hurt Africa. Only with these three elements—clear basic rules, trade/competition restraint prohibitions, and a voice at the top—can Africa hope to realize the promise of Africa.