The African Union Summit last week did not lack for pageantry. Presidential motorcades cut through newly finished, gleaming city streets in a transformed Addis Ababa. Red carpets were unfurled at special entrances in the spotless, modern, Chinese-built AU headquarters. Side events unfolded beneath ornate chandeliers in five-star hotels. And the words “your excellency” echoed through hallways with near-metronomic regularity.
But beneath the choreography, the subtext was harder-edged: development cooperation is shifting.
“Global institutions are being challenged, and new ones are being set up,” Francisca Tatchouop Belobe, the African Union commissioner for economic development, trade, tourism, industry and minerals, said at a breakfast meeting. “In this context, there has been a significant shift in the development cooperation paradigm, moving from official development assistance to market-oriented economic cooperation.”
If development cooperation is moving toward markets, the African Continental Free Trade Area, or AfCFTA, is its boldest expression — and it was one of the biggest topics of discussion in Addis.
“Its potential is immense,” Kenyan President William Ruto said last week. “Projections indicate that it could increase intra-African trade by up to $3 trillion and raise Africa’s cumulative GDP by about $1.4 trillion between 2021 and 2045.”
“This will be the first time since the establishment of the WTO in 1994 in Marrakesh that 50 countries have come together to agree on rules for common market, for investment, for industrial development, and most importantly, in the two protocols that all of us as Africans should be particularly proud of: the protocol of women and youth in trade and the protocol on digital trade,” AfCFTA Secretary-General Wamkele Mene said.
So what exactly is AfCFTA, and how does it work?
All African countries except Eritrea have ratified the agreement, committing to gradually reducing tariffs on most goods and creating a continent-wide free trade area. It is closer to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations than to the European Union — i.e., a free trade area rather than a customs union — meaning countries lower tariffs among themselves but retain control over their own external trade policies.
But tariff cuts are not painless.
In many African countries, tariffs remain a significant source of government revenue and a tool for protecting domestic industries. Reducing them too quickly can strain public finances, particularly in least developed countries — one reason the rollout is phased, with longer timelines for LDCs. Some trade has begun among early movers, but implementation remains uneven and incremental.
Countries are also still finalizing key implementation details — including long-negotiated rules of origin that determine which goods qualify for preferential treatment, with recent breakthroughs in sectors such as textiles, apparel, and automotive.
Then there’s the harder truth: Trade only transforms economies if production changes. That means industrializing, not simply swapping raw materials. AfCFTA’s answer is regional industrialization — building value chains that keep more processing and manufacturing on the continent and aligning industrial policy across borders.
Take cotton, for example. Several African countries grow it. Others spin textiles. Others stitch apparel. Yet much of the yarn still comes from outside the continent. The goal is to knit those links together — so that value is added regionally, not imported, Taffere Tesfachew, a member of AfCFTA’s Trade and Industrial Development Advisory Council, told me in Addis.
A draft regional industrial strategy is now under review at AfCFTA and could soon be presented to African ministers, Tesfachew said — an early attempt to turn that ambition into policy.
If integration is Africa’s strategy, corridors are Washington’s.
On the sidelines, U.S. officials signaled they are seeking to pilot a new cross-border infrastructure corridor — a commercially driven project meant to anchor critical minerals and supply chains.
The initiative would fall under the newly announced U.S.-AU Strategic Infrastructure and Investment Working Group, designed to mobilize private capital into transport corridors, energy networks, digital infrastructure, and critical minerals supply chains.
“There is some seriousness; it's not just for rhetoric,” said Joseph Sany, a senior fellow at the Institute for Security Studies who attended the meeting. “While there is a political and government commitment, I don't think it has been thought through all the way, on the U.S. side.”
U.S. officials sought to reassure participants that corridor investments would not be exploitative and would deliver tangible benefits to local communities.
At the same time, African officials emphasized that new infrastructure cannot simply reinforce extractive patterns. If critical minerals are the focus, value must remain on the continent. This was a recurring refrain at the conference.
That tension surfaced bluntly at a separate gathering at the summit, where economist Jeffrey Sachs offered a pointed warning: “Who are Africa's real friends? ... Not my country, I'll tell you. My country doesn't know Africa. It knows cobalt.”
Scoop: US looks to pilot next African trade corridor project
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Even in critical mineral conversations, several leaders argued, water must be part of the equation.
“The mining houses — they have money. They must invest in water. They must invest in infrastructure,” South African Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina said at one meeting.
Water security was, after all, the summit’s official theme. The continent faces a staggering water financing gap: Africa needs roughly $64 billion a year in water investment, but receives only about $10.5 billion. Institutions arrived in Addis with pledges aimed at narrowing that divide.
“For this year alone, we have an investment program targeting investments in 18 countries in the region of about $1 billion, which, once successfully completed, will provide access to water to 19 million people in Africa and 12 million with sanitation services,” said Mtchera Chirwa, the African Development Bank’s director of water development and sanitation. He added that water and sanitation will be a key pillar of the bank’s upcoming five-year strategy.
AfDB also confirmed it is partnering on “Mission Water,” the World Bank’s new global water strategy, quietly released in December. The initiative — expected to formally launch by the end of fiscal year 2026 — aims to rally multilateral development banks, United Nations agencies, philanthropies, and the private sector around a shared target that could reach more than 1 billion people. The World Bank’s own goal: 400 million.
What does that look like in practice? In eastern and southern Africa alone, the bank’s newly unveiled regional WASH plan aims to expand access to 30 million people across 12 countries over six years, backed by roughly $1.6 billion, according to Josses Mugabi, the World Bank Group’s manager for eastern and southern Africa. The finer mechanics are still coming into focus, but bank executives say the water strategy will lean on country-led compacts, the same model deployed in agriculture and Mission 300.
Those commitments build on a water investment summit convened by the African Union last August under South Africa’s Group of 20 presidency, where member states presented bankable proposals aimed at crowding in capital. Last week, the Global Water Partnership signaled its own bet on that pipeline, announcing it will relocate its headquarters from Sweden to Namibia — one of the driest countries on the continent — to position itself closer to the $10 billion–$12 billion portfolio emerging from the AU-led process.
In other words, the water agenda did not begin in Addis. But last week, several institutions signaled they were ready to finance what was outlined months ago.
Read: Amid water stress, experts want the world to get serious about irrigation
Beyond water infrastructure, leaders advanced another pillar of resilience: producing more of Africa’s medicines at home.
They signed a Presidential Declaration on Advancing Local Manufacturing of Health Products in Africa, committing to scale up production, operationalize the African Pooled Procurement Mechanism as a strategic “buy African” tool, and mobilize capital to support it.
“If we manufactured half of the health products we currently import, we could save between $30 billion and $50 billion annually, improve availability, secure better prices, strengthen our local manufacturing, and create jobs for our professionals,” said Kenya’s Ruto, the AU champion on local manufacturing.
Ruto said he is exploring convening a dedicated summit later this year — potentially ahead of the Africa-France summit in Nairobi in May — to accelerate progress toward producing at least 60% of Africa’s health products on the continent by 2040.
But factories are only part of the equation. Ministers of health and finance also called for building a 2 million-strong community health worker workforce by 2030, arguing that health security depends as much on people as on production.
Read more:
• Africa has made bold health commitments. Now it must finance them
• The urgent need to rethink Africa's health financing
Meanwhile, African leaders renewed their push for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council — hardly a new demand, but one voiced with fresh urgency. Oxfam noted that 80% of U.N. Security Council resolutions over the past decade have focused on conflicts in Africa, despite no African country holding a permanent seat.
“The absence of permanent African seats on the Security Council is indefensible. The Security Council must reflect today’s world. This is 2026 — not 1946. Whenever decisions about Africa and the world are on the table, Africa must be at the table,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in Addis.
But representation and fairness weren’t only a political demand. It was a financial one, too.
“Too much of our financing remains fragmented and overly reliant on external systems that price Africa for perceived risk, not proven opportunity,” said Samaila Zubairu, president and CEO of the African Finance Corporation.
That frustration has been playing out in real time in the standoff between Afreximbank and Fitch Ratings — a dispute over how African-led financial institutions are assessed by global credit agencies, and whether they are being judged through an external lens that fails to reflect their mandate. After Fitch downgraded the Cairo-based lender earlier this year, Afreximbank severed ties, arguing the agency misunderstood its legal status and preferred creditor protections.
At the summit, the bank’s former president sharpened that critique.
“Over 30-something percent of the capital, 36%, is domestic. And that's part of the problem we have with the rating agencies because they are worried that we are creeping away from the traditional sources of capital,” said former Afreximbank President Benedict Oramah. “We've gone to Asia, and we're highly rated in Asia, so the perception is changing. We have to change the sources of capital.”
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For all the focus on markets and manufacturing, geopolitics was never far from view.
The elephant in the room was Sudan. As war continues to rage, critics argue the African Union’s response has been fragmented and ineffective. “When it comes to addressing peace and security on the continent, the institution is arguably at its weakest since its inauguration,” Liesl Louw-Vaudran, senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, wrote ahead of the summit. There was no major breakthrough on Sudan at the summit.
Sudan has become a stark test of AU’s ability to respond to conflict — and its struggles there are feeding broader questions about relevance and authority. From eastern Congo to the Sahel, armed violence continues to spread with little sign of resolution.
Frustration runs deeper than one crisis. Across the continent, particularly among younger populations, dissatisfaction with political incumbency has been rising. Critics say AU can appear too aligned with sitting governments — a perception sharpened in an era of protest movements and youth-led political pressure.
At the same time, the institution is trying to reform itself: narrowing priorities, pushing for more sustainable financing, and professionalizing its workforce. That effort has included the African Union’s Skills Audit and Competency Assessment — a review of more than 900 staff aimed at overhauling human resources and improving operational efficiency.
While the assessment phase has concluded, implementation remains contentious. Recommendations around reclassification and potential dismissals are still unfolding. One staff member described the process as fraught — but also necessary, saying it has helped address long-standing concerns about qualifications and patronage.
Whether those internal reforms restore confidence remains to be seen. But as the continent pushes for greater sovereignty in markets, minerals, and multilateral forums, the union itself is under mounting pressure to prove it can keep pace.
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