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.