Abstract
This paper examines the implications of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) for transformative trade policy through developmental regionalism in Southern Africa. Particularly, the paper examines the manner in and extent to which the continental free trade area’s developmental approach serves as a framework for the transformation of trade policy in Southern Africa. To this end, the key question that this paper answers relates to extent to which the developmental regionalism approach, which is gaining traction through the AfCFTA, contributes to transformative trade policy in the region facing multiple developmental challenges. This is against the backdrop that the contributions of AfCFTA towards deepening cooperation on strengthening mutually beneficial trade integration, consolidating regional value chains, improving cross-border infrastructure investment and strengthening democratic warrants timeous academic and policy debates. While the potential impact of the AfCFTA has largely been explored from a holistic continental approach, academic and policy interrogations of the continental free trade’s implications for Southern Africa’s inclusive trade and development is still nascent. With this said, the aim of this paper is to generate knowledge on the continental free trade area by examining the extent to which it provides a new economic and political architecture appropriate for accelerating development in a region plagued by political economic realities inhibiting inclusive trade integration and development. Covering a market of 1.2 billion Africans with a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of US$2.5 trillion, the primary aim of the AfCFTA is to establish an African single market for goods and services which sets to increase intra-Africa trade by approximately 52.3 %. The World Bank (2020) estimates the full implementation of the free trade area to increase Africa’s real income gains by 7% which is approximately US$450 billion. Against this background, examining the concomitant implications of these milestone developments for transformative trade policy in Southern Africa constitutes the key objective of this paper. Hence, the epistemic significance of this paper lies in its contribution to the development and expansion of the much-needed knowledge on the trajectory of the AfCFTA trade integration towards consolidating trade performance, development and security in Southern Africa.