Trade Logistics Services and Export Diversification in Africa: Does Global Value Chain Participation Matter?

African economies remain concentrated in narrow export baskets despite decades of trade reform. This paper argues that an underexamined explanation lies in the quality of trade logistics services, conceptualised not as a background trade cost but as a service-based capability that shapes the ability of firms to enter new products and join cross border production networks. Using an unbalanced panel of 42 African countries over 2007 to 2023, defined by observed Logistics Performance Index survey years, the paper finds that logistics performance is positively associated with export diversification and negatively with concentration. The diversification effect strengthens as global value chain participation deepens, indicating complementarity between logistics services and production network integration. Timeliness, logistics competence, and tracking and tracing are the most influential dimensions. The findings are robust to dynamic system GMM, Driscoll and Kraay errors, and alternative measures, and reposition logistics services as a core capability for structural export transformation.