Digitalisation offers one of the strongest opportunities to reduce trade friction across Africa, but only if it is used to redesign processes rather than simply reproduce existing bureaucracy in electronic form. Uploading a paper form to a digital platform does not necessarily make trade easier if exporters must still submit the same information separately to multiple agencies.

The more strategic sequence is to simplify procedures, harmonise requirements, digitise transactions and then connect the systems through which those transactions move. This is important because Africa’s trade environment remains highly fragmented. A digital customs system in one country cannot fully solve a regional trade problem if the system at the destination border cannot exchange information with it.

The AfCFTA framework already points toward this direction. Its Customs Cooperation Annex calls for the continued development and upgrading of modern data-processing systems and encourages interconnectivity among computerised customs clearance and information systems. The Trade Facilitation Annex similarly establishes a framework for electronic information and single-window approaches.

The newer AfCFTA Protocol on Digital Trade strengthens this direction by establishing common principles and standards intended to support digital trade and interoperability across the continent. Its objectives include promoting intra-African digital trade, establishing predictable and harmonised rules, strengthening cooperation and enabling interoperability of frameworks and systems.

For the CTA industry, the potential goes beyond faster customs clearance. Digital trade infrastructure could support electronic certificates, origin verification, shipment visibility, supplier information, compliance records and traceability across regional value chains. This is particularly important as international buyers demand more information about where products come from, how they were manufactured and whether suppliers can demonstrate compliance with environmental and social requirements.

But digitalisation should not become another layer of fragmentation. If every country develops isolated systems that cannot communicate with neighbouring systems, Africa will simply replace paper fragmentation with digital fragmentation. The strategic objective should therefore be interoperable trade infrastructure.

This is consistent with the World Bank’s current integration agenda, which identifies customs, standards, payments, transport and digital systems as interconnected components of a functioning continental market. The goal is not only to make individual institutions more digital, but to reduce the economic distance between African markets.

For Africa’s CTA sector, this could eventually transform the way regional production networks operate. Manufacturers could verify suppliers more easily, demonstrate origin more efficiently, track shipments across borders and manage compliance through connected digital systems. The opportunity is therefore much larger than digitising customs. Africa needs digital systems that allow its regional value chains to function.

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