Digital Trade and the AfCFTA : The Legal Framework Put to the Test of the Continental Digital Market

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) represents a large-scale free trade agreement designed to create a unified market facilitating the free movement of goods, services, capital, and data across the African continent. This agreement covers a range of legal domains, including trade in goods and services, investments, competition policy, intellectual property rights, as well as digital trade and the inclusion of women and youth in commerce. By establishing a harmonized legal framework, the AfCFTA seeks to address the continent’s main legal challenge, often described as a "legal patchwork". The coexistence of multiple legal regimes—including community and regional regulations, national laws, and international treaties—had led to significant legal complexity. By facilitating the free flow of services and providers in strategic sectors such as professional services, information technologies, telecommunications, media, tourism, transport, and financial services, member states create favorable conditions for promoting inclusive e-commerce. Through the integration of crucial areas such as cross-border data transfer, digital financial transactions, taxation of digital products, and customs duties applicable to digital trade, the AfCFTA offers substantial prospects for digital ecosystem stakeholders as well as regulatory authorities responsible for enforcing these standards. However, achieving a truly digital AfCFTA requires bridging technological, infrastructural, legal, and economic gaps.