How to Negotiate an Industrial Policy Under the AfCFTA : Architecture, Coherence, and the Governance Challenge

Policy papers & briefing notes
Written By Guillaume Gérout Suominen
• Mengistie (L.) & Gérout Suominen (G.), How to Negotiate an Industrial Policy Under AfCFTA: Architecture, Coherence, and the Governance Challenge, Policy Centre for the New South, 2026

Mengistie (L.) & Gérout Suominen (G.), How to Negotiate an Industrial Policy Under AfCFTA: Architecture, Coherence, and the Governance Challenge, Policy Centre for the New South, 2026

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The African Union Summit in February 2026 instructed the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Council of Ministers to negotiate a Protocol on Industrial Policy and Development. However, this work is being conducted without adequate preparation, which is likely to reproduce the very weaknesses it aims to address.

This paper is a conceptual mapping exercise designed to raise preparatory questions before drafting begins, rather than prescribe specific outcomes. It is structured into five sections:

  1. The first section defines industrial policy narrowly enough to fit treaty language while remaining broad enough to encompass the instruments that drive industrialisation, aligning this definition with the AfCFTA’s objectives.

  2. The second section maps out the landscape that the Protocol will encounter. This includes examining the African Union's continental instruments, the industrial policy frameworks of the Regional Economic Communities that predate the AfCFTA, and the existing provisions within the AfCFTA that function as industrial policy—whether explicitly labelled as such or not. These provisions include tariff schedules, exclusion lists, product-specific rules of origin, infant-industry and general exceptions, special economic zones, and commitments related to services in industrial-enabling sectors, as well as the unratified Phase II disciplines.

  3. The third section outlines what is realistically negotiable, including shared principles, a safe-harbour catalogue of permitted instruments, positive harmonisation in targeted areas, governance and coordination mechanisms, and the negotiating dynamics that will determine which of these will receive binding treatment.

Authors

Luladay Berhanu Mengistie

Guillaume Gérout Suominen

Guillaume Gérout Suominen

Guillaume is a specialist in trade negotiations and rules of origin, currently working with the EU-WCO Rules of Origin Africa Programme. He has consulted for international organisations and partners to support the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) negotiations and implementation.

His clients have included organizations such as the International Trade Centre (ITC), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), International Organization for Migration (IOM), Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the International Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat, and the governments of Madagascar and Tunisia, among others. He has notably served as a trade policy advisor to the AfCFTA Secretariat, focusing specifically on rules of origin.

His professional experience includes negotiating on behalf of the Seychelles government for several trade agreements, including the COMESA Free Trade Agreement (FTA), the COMESA-SADC-EAC Tripartite FTA, and the Eastern and Southern Africa-European Union Economic Partnership Agreement (ESA-EU EPA) related to rules of origin. Additionally, he represented the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) as an observer during AfCFTA negotiations from 2016 to 2020.

He is a PhD candidate in the Doctoral Programme in Political, Societal, and Regional Changes at the University of Helsinki.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/guillaumegerout/