This article is part of a Synergies series on African trade and sustainability priorities and interests. Any views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of TESS or any of its partner organizations or funders.

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Global trade governance has entered a period of structural strain. The multilateral trading system now faces pressures from geopolitical fragmentation, contested industrial policy, climate imperatives, technological change, and widening inequalities across and within regions. Nowhere are these pressures more acute—or consequential—than across the African continent.

African countries are also contending with the changing nature of global trade governance. Trade is no longer organized around a single, coherent system. Rather, African countries operate between two imperfect realities. At the multilateral level, rule-making has become increasingly fragmented, with negotiations shifting across plurilateral and extra-institutional settings. At the continental level, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has established a comprehensive legal framework, yet its utilization remains uneven due to regulatory fragmentation and gaps in implementation.

The consequence is a dual challenge. In one system, rules exist but are underused. In another, rules are no longer fully agreed.

The continent’s navigation of this new terrain requires more than participation. It requires coordination, coherence, and strategic intent. 

This moment of strain and unpredictability is also one of possibility. Africa stands at a vantage point from which it can shape several defining global transitions: the reform of the multilateral trading system, green and digital industrialization, the governance of critical minerals needed for the energy transition, the reconfiguration of supply chains, and the operationalization of the AfCFTA.

For this potential to be realized, a more fundamental challenge must first be addressed. Africa’s engagement with global trade has too often been fragmented. Policy is developed in silos, expertise is dispersed, and participation in global processes is frequently reactive. The result is a persistent gap between ideas, negotiation, and implementation. It is this coordination deficit—as much as any external constraint—that has limited Africa’s influence in shaping trade and sustainability outcomes.

The Africa Trade Policy Working Group (ATPWG) emerges in response to this structural gap. Launched at a high-level workshop in Cameroon on the sidelines of the Fourteenth WTO Ministerial Conference, the working group is conceived not as an additional forum, but as a coordinating platform designed to consolidate expertise, align perspectives, and strengthen Africa’s strategic engagement across trade processes.*

Equally important within the global trading system is the political and economic value associated with achieving “preferred trading” relationships and trusted market-partner status under the WTO framework. Although the WTO does not formally designate a universal “preferred trader” category, enhanced market access arrangements, regulatory trust, and recognition of compliance capacity often function as informal indicators of above-average institutional performance, transparency, and adherence to multilateral trade rules.

In practice, countries and firms that demonstrate strong governance, traceability systems, standards compliance, and dispute-resolution credibility tend to experience lower transaction friction, improved investor confidence, and deeper integration into global value chains.

Under the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, a subsidy exists when a government or public body provides a financial contribution, income support, or price support that confers a benefit on a firm, industry, or group of firms; the subsidy becomes actionable when it is specific and causes adverse effects to another member’s trade interests. In the fossil fuel context, WTO members increasingly distinguish between broad, untargeted support that lowers the cost of fossil fuels and transition-oriented measures that are temporary, transparent, targeted, and designed to reduce long-term environmental and fiscal harm.

Rather than relying primarily on broad subsidy-driven industrial competition, WTO reform discussions could increasingly focus on reducing non-tariff barriers that are informally justified under broad categories such as “national security,” “strategic autonomy,” or “systemic risk,” but which may function in practice as selective market-access restrictions or industrial protection mechanisms.

A more transparent and development-oriented alternative would be the establishment of a harmonized subsidy classification framework linked to technology readiness levels, infrastructure maturity, and production capacity equalization needs for emerging industries in developing economies. Under such an approach, temporary and performance-based support for early-stage technologies, industrial transition infrastructure, and ecological modernization could be differentiated from long-term market-distorting subsidies designed primarily to suppress competition.

The central premise of the working group is that Africa must move beyond episodic engagement towards structured and sustained influence. Participation alone is no longer sufficient in a system where outcomes are shaped across multiple, overlapping processes. Effective engagement now depends on the ability to connect positions across multilateral, regional, and sectoral arenas, and to align trade policy with broader development objectives.

This shift is reflected in the working group’s priorities, which are anchored in both immediate pressures and long-term transformation.

In the short term, African priorities are centred on managing the immediate implications of trade and geopolitical shifts. Climate-related trade measures, sustainability standards, and regulatory requirements are already shaping market access and competitiveness. The immediate task is to ensure that these developments do not narrow policy space or restrict development options. Therefore, African priorities include safeguarding policy space and addressing asymmetries in emerging trade measures, while strengthening participation in standard-setting processes and ensuring that evolving standards do not constrain development pathways. It also includes a distinct engagement with improving the use of existing frameworks such as the AfCFTA.

The longer-term challenge is more ambitious; the emphasis is on shaping the rules themselves. Without coordinated engagement, African economies risk becoming rule-takers in frameworks that directly affect their industrialization prospects. African engagement requires embedding development, sustainability, and equity at the core of global trade governance, while advancing green industrialization, digital transformation, and value addition within global supply chains. It also requires integrating trade policy with the structural conditions that determine development outcomes, including access to finance, cost of capital, and industrial capacity.

In this sense, the agenda is not confined to trade in the narrow sense. It reflects a broader development framework in which trade, finance, investment, sustainability, and industrial policy are mutually reinforcing. They open pathways for green industrialization, for participation in new value chains, and for the expansion of trade in environmental goods and services.

The working group provides a vehicle through which these priorities can be articulated, coordinated, and translated into practical engagement.

Africa’s challenge in global trade governance has never been one of absence. Expertise exists. Interests are clear. What has been missing is a mechanism to align them into sustained and strategic engagement. The ATPWG is an attempt to provide that mechanism. It seeks to close the fragmentation that has long characterized Africa’s trade policy ecosystem and to serve as a platform that can agglomerate its diverse stakeholders into a coherent and influential voice.

By bringing together policymakers, negotiators, researchers, and practitioners across the continent and its diaspora, it aims to create a structured space for collaboration and collective agenda-setting. This coordination is not an end in itself. It is a means of strengthening Africa’s ability to act strategically within a fragmented system. By consolidating expertise and aligning positions, the working group can help ensure that African perspectives are reflected not only in formal negotiations, but in the broader processes through which trade and sustainability rules are shaped.

In practical terms, this involves generating policy-relevant analysis, facilitating dialogue across institutions, and supporting the development of common or convergent positions on key issues. It also involves linking continental frameworks such as the AfCFTA with global processes, ensuring that Africa’s internal integration strengthens its external engagement.

The objective is clear: to move from dispersed influence to coordinated agency. Africa possesses the resources, the market potential, and the strategic relevance to shape the future of trade and sustainability. The task now is to organize that potential into action.

* The ATPWG was unveiled at a high-level workshop co-organized by the Remaking Trade for a Sustainable Future Project (RTP), ODI Global, Trade Negotiations and Investment Forum (TNIF), International Relations Institute of Cameroon (IRIC), Forum on Trade, Environment, & the SDGs (TESS), and South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). It rests on a strong institutional foundation, with partners including the African Future Policies Hub, Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association (EMEA), Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa at the London School of Economics and Political Science, International Relations Institute of Cameroon, Lagos Business School at Pan-Atlantic University, Onsi Sawiris School of Business at The American University in Cairo, TNIF, SAIIA, and Strathmore Law School. It is also supported by a network of leading African trade experts.

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Dr. Ese Stephen Owie serves as Convenor of the Africa Trade Policy Working Group (ATPWG); Senior Advisor of the Remaking Trade for a Sustainable Future Project; Visiting Fellow at the Law School, University of Essex; CEO of the University of Oxford Climate Alumni Network (OxCAN); and Associate Professor of Public International Law and Policy at EUCLID (Pôle Universitaire EUCLIDE/Euclid University).

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Synergies is an online platform featuring expert commentary and opinions curated by TESS. We foster dialogue and incubate ideas on how to shape a global trading system that effectively addresses global environmental crises and advances sustainable development. Synergies draws on perspectives from leading experts and practitioners across policy communities from around the world. We cultivate solutions-oriented policy analysis for a sustainable future.

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