by KAKUR DASSY, PhD Candidate, School of Law, Xiangtan University, and Xie Liqiong, Master Student, School of Law, Xiangtan University
Abstract
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) represents Africa’s most ambitious economic integration initiative, seeking to create a unified market of 1.3 billion people. However, realizing this vision requires addressing critical infrastructure deficits across the continent. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) offers unprecedented opportunities for infrastructure development that can accelerate AfCFTA’s objectives. This article argues that through strategic partnership frameworks, innovative financing mechanisms, and coordinated continental approaches, Africa can leverage BRI investments to strengthen internal market integration while maintaining economic sovereignty. The analysis presents a road-map for transforming connectivity challenges into catalysts for sustainable economic transformation across the continent.
Introduction
Africa stands on the precipice of a new era of economic integration and prosperity, a future anchored by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Launched in 2018, the AfCFTA represents a historic and ambitious undertaking, aiming to create a single internal market for goods and services across the continent. With a combined GDP of over $3 trillion and a population projected to reach 2.5 billion by 2050, the AfCFTA’s promise is immense: to dismantle colonial-era barriers, stimulate intra-African trade, and drive industrialization . This continent-wide agreement is designed to be a catalyst for sustained, inclusive economic growth, allowing African nations to leverage their collective strength and compete more effectively on the global stage. Yet, for this grand vision to materialize, a fundamental hurdle must be overcome: Africa’s significant and persistent infrastructure gap. A lack of adequate roads, railways, ports, and energy grids means that moving goods between African countries is often more difficult and costly than exporting them to other continents. This logistical deficit is a looming threat, capable of undermining the very foundation of the AfCFTA’s free-trade ambitions.
Addressing this infrastructure deficit requires capital and expertise on a scale that African nations, individually and collectively, have yet to fully mobilize. This is where an external force, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), enters the picture. Launched by China in 2013, the BRI is a sprawling global development strategy aimed at building a vast network of infrastructure projects across Asia, Europe, and, increasingly, Africa. Over the past decade, the BRI has become a major player in African infrastructure development, funding and constructing critical projects from the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway to the Port of Djibouti. The BRI’s presence on the continent is not merely a collection of isolated projects; it represents a major source of external finance and technical expertise for large-scale infrastructure. This convergence of interests, Africa’s need for connectivity and China’s strategic provision of it creates a compelling and often overlooked nexus.
This strategic nexus, where the AfCFTA and the BRI intersect, is the central focus of this analysis. The AfCFTA provides the essential legal and regulatory framework for a single market, creating the demand for seamless cross-border connectivity. Simultaneously, the BRI offers a potential, though not without its complexities and risks, solution to the physical challenge of building that very connectivity. It presents a fascinating case study of an internal African market being shaped, in part, by an external partnership. This paper argues that understanding this dynamic, this AfCFTA-Belt and Road nexus, is crucial for comprehending the future trajectory of African economic integration. It is a relationship fraught with both immense opportunities, for faster project implementation and expanded trade flows, and significant challenges, including concerns over sovereignty, and the long-term strategic implications of relying on a single external partner. Examining this critical intersection, we can better understand how Africa’s ambition to create its own destiny may be inextricably linked to the actions of a global superpower, shaping the economic landscape for generations to come.
The Infrastructure Imperative Meets the Belt and Road Opportunity
The ambitious promise of the AfCFTA a single, integrated African market,stands on a precarious foundation. While the protocol envisions a future of seamless trade and frictionless commerce, the reality on the ground presents a stark contrast. The continent is fragmented not by tariffs alone, but by a crippling lack of physical and digital infrastructure. This deficit is the single greatest obstacle to the AfCFTA’s success, a silent yet formidable barrier that negates the benefits of free-trade agreements and perpetuates a trade dynamic rooted in the colonial past. Africa’s infrastructure challenges are staggering in their scale and scope. The transportation networks are woefully underdeveloped, hindering the movement of goods and people. In vast rural areas, where the majority of the population resides, only a third of people live within two kilometers of a paved road. This isn’t just a matter of inconvenience; it’s an economic bottleneck that makes it prohibitively expensive to transport agricultural products to market or raw materials to factories. The continent’s railway density is a mere fraction of the global average, a stark reminder of the fragmented rail networks that were built for colonial extraction, not for pan-African integration. Similarly, ports, while improving, still grapple with cumbersome procedures and long clearance times, making it faster and cheaper for many African nations to trade with their former colonizers than with their next-door neighbors.
This infrastructural poverty extends to the very source of economic power: energy. Over 600 million Africans live without access to electricity, a fundamental prerequisite for industrialization. Without reliable and affordable power, factories cannot run, businesses cannot scale, and the potential for value-added manufacturing remains a distant dream. The continent’s total power generation capacity is a meager 90 gigawatts,a figure equivalent to just one country, South Korea. This energy deficit constrains economic growth and makes it impossible for many African businesses to compete in the modern global economy. The digital sphere, the engine of 21st-century commerce, faces similar hurdles. While mobile phone penetration has boomed, internet access is still limited to a minority of the population. This digital divide prevents the widespread adoption of e-commerce, digital trade platforms, and online services that are essential for the efficient operation of a continental free trade area. Cumbersome trade facilitation procedures further compound the problem. The simple act of crossing a border can take days, bogged down by bureaucracy and manual processes. This institutional friction adds significant costs and delays, discouraging intra-African trade and keeping the continent’s trade flows externally oriented.
This confluence of infrastructure deficits is the central challenge facing the AfCFTA. The agreement can create the rules for a single market, but without the physical arteries to connect it, it remains a vision on paper. The estimated $100 billion per year required to bridge this infrastructure gap is a sum far beyond the current capacity of African governments alone. This brings us to a crucial question: who will provide the capital, technology, and expertise to build this new Africa?
This is where the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) emerges not just as a potential partner, but as a force of a different magnitude. As the largest infrastructure program in human history, the BRI’s scale is unparalleled. China has committed over $340 billion to African projects since 2013, a figure that dwarfs traditional development assistance. These aren’t small-scale, isolated projects; they are foundational developments like the Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya, which has slashed travel times between Nairobi and Mombasa, or the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway, which connects landlocked Ethiopia to a major port. These investments directly address the connectivity gaps that fragment the African market.
The BRI’s appeal lies in its scale and speed. Unlike the often-piecemeal approach of traditional donors, BRI projects are designed as interconnected corridors, aligning with the very logic of a continent-wide market. This macro-level thinking is what the AfCFTA needs. Furthermore, Chinese companies have a track record of rapid project implementation, completing major infrastructure projects in a fraction of the time it takes for traditional development finance institutions. This acceleration is crucial, as Africa cannot afford to wait decades for the infrastructure necessary to realize its economic integration goals. Beyond just building, the BRI also facilitates technology transfer and financial innovation. Chinese firms often include training programs for local engineers and technicians, a vital step toward building long-term, domestic capacity. The diverse financing mechanisms employed by the BRI,from concessional loans to blended finance, offer a flexibility that can bypass the rigid structures of traditional Western development aid. In this context, the BRI represents a powerful and available solution to Africa’s most pressing challenge. It is a force that, by its very nature and scale, offers a unique opportunity to provide the physical backbone for the AfCFTA’s digital and regulatory framework, creating the nexus where Africa’s ambition meets a powerful external partnership.
From Nexus to Strategic Partnership: Leveraging AfCFTA for BRI.
The AfCFTA and the BRI represent a unique convergence of an African ambition for integration and China’s global drive for connectivity. To truly capitalize on this relationship, African nations must move beyond being passive recipients of aid and transform the nexus into a strategic partnership. The key to this lies in leveraging the collective bargaining power of the AfCFTA to guide and shape BRI investment, ensuring it aligns with the continent’s long-term developmental goals.
Forging a Synergistic Future: From Reactive to Proactive Engagement
The outstanding goal for Africa is to use the AfCFTA as a unifying platform to dictate the terms of engagement with China. This means moving from a reactive, project-by-project approach to a proactive, coordinated, and continent-wide strategy. Instead of individual countries negotiating separate deals, the AfCFTA provides a framework for a unified front. By speaking with one voice, African nations can present a single, coherent vision for continental infrastructure, ensuring that BRI projects serve the purpose of intra-African trade and integration, rather than simply facilitating the export of raw materials.
This shift requires the development of a continental infrastructure master plan. The AfCFTA’s Protocol on Trade Facilitation and the African Union’s Agenda 2063 provide the perfect blueprint for this. By identifying key regional corridors and missing links in transportation, energy, and digital networks, African nations can present a clear road-map for investment. For example, instead of a port in one country and a railway in another that don’t connect, a master plan could outline a seamless, multi-modal transport corridor linking a landlocked country to a major port through a single, coordinated project. This strategic alignment ensures that every dollar of BRI investment contributes directly to building the physical backbone of the continental free trade area.
Furthermore, this strategic partnership must be grounded in enhanced debt management and contract negotiation capacity. African institutions and governments need to develop the expertise to scrutinize loan agreements, negotiate favorable terms, and ensure that contracts are transparent and accountable. This includes pushing for arbitration clauses that are fair and equitable and demanding robust environmental and social impact assessments. The current information shows a growing awareness of this need, with regional bodies increasingly playing a role in guiding foreign investment.
Case Study: The Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR)
The narrative of Africa’s development is a multifaceted story, shaped by a confluence of geopolitical forces, economic imperatives, and historical legacies. At the heart of this narrative, today lies the dynamic intersection of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). While the Western world has traditionally engaged with Africa through Official Development Assistance (ODA), China’s approach has often been characterized by large-scale, transformative infrastructure projects. A close examination of a flagship BRI project like the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) alongside a parallel success story, the Ethiopia-Djibouti Railway, provides a compelling lens through which to understand the transformative potential of this new development paradigm. This analysis will further be enriched by a critical look at the historical consequences of Western aid, illustrating a clear contrast in methodologies and outcomes.
The Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in Kenya stands as a powerful testament to the speed and efficiency of the BRI model. This project was not merely about building a railway; it was about re-imagining a nation’s logistics backbone. The SGR was designed to address a critical infrastructure deficit that had long hindered trade and economic growth. Built by a Chinese state-owned enterprise, the project’s implementation was remarkably swift, demonstrating a level of efficiency that traditional development models often struggle to match. The railway has dramatically cut the freight transport time from Mombasa, Kenya’s principal port, to the capital city, Nairobi, from over 24 hours to a mere 8. This tangible reduction in transit time is not just a statistical improvement; it is a fundamental enhancement of the country’s logistical capacity, streamlining the movement of goods and people. The SGR has also significantly reduced congestion on the Mombasa-Nairobi highway, leading to lower transport costs and a smaller carbon footprint from road traffic. This infrastructure has created a new economic corridor, stimulating growth in ancillary services and industries along its route, and providing a modern, reliable link that is essential for a growing economy.
The SGR’s impact extends beyond simple logistics. It has become a symbol of modernity and progress for Kenya, a powerful statement of its aspirations to become a key economic hub in East Africa. The project’s success lies in its ability to address a core developmental need with a large-scale, comprehensive solution. By focusing on a high-impact infrastructure project, China’s model has provided a tangible, visible, and immediate benefit to the Kenyan economy. This approach, centered on direct investment and construction, contrasts sharply with the often-piecemeal and conditional nature of traditional Western aid. The railway has facilitated the seamless flow of goods, which is a key tenet of the AfCFTA, demonstrating how a bilateral BRI project can, in practice, contribute to a broader continental integration agenda.
A comparison with Western Development Assistance
The success of these BRI projects provides a crucial backdrop for a critical re-evaluation of the long-standing Western approach to African development, primarily through Official Development Assistance (ODA). For decades, ODA has been the hallmark of Western engagement. While often well-intentioned, the consequences of this aid have been a subject of extensive debate, revealing significant limitations and unintended outcomes. One of the most significant criticisms is the conditionality attached to Western aid. These conditions often compel recipient countries to adopt specific political or economic reforms, such as the structural adjustment programs (SAPs) of the 1980s and 1990s, mandated by institutions like the World Bank and IMF. While the stated goal was to promote economic stability, these programs often had severe and detrimental social consequences. They led to cuts in essential public services like healthcare and education, and the forced privatization of state enterprises, which resulted in widespread unemployment and a hollowing out of the public sector.
A striking example of this is the Ghana-IMF case study. As part of a structural adjustment program, Ghana was pressured to liberalize its markets and privatize key state-owned industries. The promised economic boom did not materialize, and instead, the country faced significant social dislocation and unemployment. This approach often created a “dependency syndrome,” where many African countries became reliant on a continuous flow of foreign assistance, which in turn disincentivized them from developing robust, self-sufficient domestic revenue streams. Unlike the visible and transformative nature of a railway or a port, the outcomes of these aid packages were often less tangible, leading to a cycle of repeated aid with limited long-term economic transformation. The focus on governance reforms and political conditions, while important, often overshadowed the fundamental need for physical infrastructure that could truly unlock a country’s economic potential.
Furthermore, Western development assistance has been criticized for being driven by the foreign policy interests of the donor countries rather than the specific developmental needs of the recipient nations. Aid has sometimes been used to prop up friendly but autocratic regimes or to fund projects that serve little to no economic value but align with a donor’s political agenda. This can lead to a misallocation of resources and a failure to address the most pressing developmental challenges. In contrast, the BRI model, by focusing on large-scale infrastructure, provides a tangible asset that a country can leverage for its own economic growth, creating a foundation upon which to build a more prosperous future. This contrast highlights a fundamental difference in approach: while the Western model has often focused on institutional and governance reforms, the Chinese model has prioritized the creation of physical infrastructure as a direct catalyst for economic development.
In conclusion, a comparative analysis of the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR and the Ethiopia-Djibouti Railway with the historical record of Western aid provides a nuanced understanding of the evolving landscape of global development. The SGR and the Ethiopia-Djibouti Railway demonstrate how large-scale, strategically planned infrastructure projects can serve as powerful catalysts for economic growth, regional integration, and trade facilitation. They represent a paradigm shift from a model of aid based on conditionalities and institutional reform to one based on direct investment in physical assets that create new economic realities. These projects are not just about railways; they are about connecting markets, stimulating industrial growth, and building the physical sinews of a more integrated and prosperous Africa. By focusing on tangible infrastructure that supports the objectives of the AfCFTA, the BRI is providing a powerful new pathway for Africa’s economic transformation, one that is reshaping the continent’s logistical and economic landscape for the 21st century.
Conclusion: The New Scramble for Connectivity
The AfCFTA-Belt and Road nexus is a defining feature of current African economic development. The AfCFTA represents Africa’s collective, outstanding effort to create a unified, self-reliant economic powerhouse, a project of African self-determination. Its success, however, is critically dependent on bridging a staggering infrastructure gap. Into this void has stepped China, with its expansive and fast-moving BRI, offering the capital and expertise to build the very arteries that the AfCFTA desperately needs. This relationship is not a simple transaction but a complex and consequential nexus. It holds the potential for unprecedented synergy, where the BRI’s infrastructure-building prowess provides the physical foundation for the AfCFTA’s new economic order. But it also carries significant risks related to debt, transparency, and sovereignty. The key takeaway from this analysis is that the future of this partnership hinges on Africa’s ability to assert its agency.
The ultimate success of the AfCFTA will not be determined by China’s intentions, but by Africa’s strategic response. The path forward lies in African nations using the AfCFTA as a unifying platform to present a collective vision for a connected continent. They must direct BRI investment towards projects that serve their own priorities, not just those of a foreign power. This is the new scramble for connectivity, a struggle to build the physical world that will underpin Africa’s economic future, while ensuring that the terms of that construction do not compromise its hard-won independence. The AfCFTA and the BRI are not just two parallel initiatives; they are two powerful forces whose interaction will either create a new landscape of shared prosperity or cause seismic instability. Africa’s ability to skillfully and deliberately manage this complex, vital, and human relationship will determine its destiny.
