Rules of Origin and Industrial Policy: Levers, Disconnects and Pathways to Alignment

In February 2026, African Union Heads of State and Government directed the AfCFTA Council of Ministers to negotiate a Protocol on Industrial Policy and Development.

The agreement already contains an industrial policy instrument of remarkable granularity: its product-specific rules of origin. Each rule determines where transformation must take place for a good to trade preferentially, and therefore where investment in productive capacity pays off.

Yet these rules are written without industrial-policy guidance — and they are approaching revision just as the Protocol enters negotiation.