KIGALI – President Paul Kagame says Africa’s biggest trade challenge is not creating continental agreements, but turning them into realities that businesses and ordinary Africans can actually experience.
Kagame was responding to concerns over the slow implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), an agreement designed to expand trade among African countries by reducing barriers to the movement of goods and services.
He said the agreement itself was an important achievement because it brought African countries around a common vision for continental trade.
The bigger test, however, is whether governments can move from commitments to implementation.
“I’m happy that that step was made for Africa to come together and put together a framework in which we are going to realize broader trade within the continent. Doing it is the most important thing. And that’s where we have fallen short as a continent,” Kagame acknowledged.
‘Africans Must Be Frustrated’
The slow pace is significant because AfCFTA was created to address one of Africa’s longstanding economic weaknesses but African countries continue to face substantial barriers when trading with one another despite geographical proximity and shared markets.
For businesses, those obstacles extend beyond tariffs. Customs procedures, different regulations, standards and other non-tariff barriers can make it difficult and expensive to move goods across borders.
Kagame said the frustration over the pace of implementation is therefore understandable.
“We are not moving at the right pace. It can cause frustration. And for good reasons, I think. The Africans must be frustrated. We can’t just keep complaining. We have to find a way of getting together and doing what we have to do,” he said.
The problem, Kagame suggested, is partly one of collective action. African countries may agree on a common objective, but implementation requires each of them to make changes at home and accept the obligations that come with deeper integration.
That is where, he said, the continent continues to struggle.
From Agreements to Open Borders
The same challenge extends beyond trade in goods.
During the press conference, a Moroccan content creator who has cycled across 34 African countries told Kagame that crossing borders had often proved more difficult and expensive than the physical challenge of travelling across the continent.
She pointed to Rwanda as an example of a country that has made it easier for Africans to enter and move around the country.
When asked what lesson other African leaders could draw from Rwanda’s experience, Kagame resisted presenting Rwanda’s approach as a prescription for other governments. Instead, he pointed to what Rwanda says it has learned from opening its borders more widely.
“We give our opinion, not only our opinion, but an example of what we are doing for ourselves, we demonstrate that we have not encountered any serious problems by making it easy for people to cross our border, in or out,” he said.
Instead, he said, Rwanda had experienced benefits from making movement easier and was encouraging other African countries to consider what similar policies could mean for their own economies and societies.
“What we have discovered are only benefits. And that’s what we share with the people. We tell them, for us, in our experience, we have discovered benefits,” he noted, citing the Moroccan cyclist’s own experience as an illustration.
Her ability to enter Rwanda, travel through the country and eventually leave again without the barriers she had encountered elsewhere was itself evidence of what easier movement can make possible.
“You didn’t lose anything; we didn’t lose anything. I think we gained that you are able to come to our country and do whatever you want to do, and you will live when you want to live, and you will come back sooner rather than later,” Kagame said.
His argument was that integration becomes more meaningful when Africans can experience it in their daily lives, not simply when governments sign another continental agreement.
If this was multiplied thousands or millions of times across countries, Africans would have immense benefits.
A Journey Still Worth Pursuing
Despite his criticism of the pace, Kagame did not portray AfCFTA as a failed project. Instead, he insisted that Africa has already done the politically difficult part of agreeing on a continental framework. What remains is the harder work of making governments act on it.
For Rwanda, deeper continental integration could open access to markets beyond its relatively small domestic economy while creating more opportunities for businesses, investors and people to move across Africa.
Kagame’s remarks suggest that trade integration cannot be separated from the wider question of African mobility.
A continental market is difficult to realize if goods face unnecessary border barriers and the people expected to create businesses, build partnerships and pursue opportunities face equally difficult obstacles when moving between countries.
The challenge, therefore, is no longer whether Africa knows what it wants. The framework exists, the political ambition exists.
What remains is the willingness of countries to turn those commitments into practical changes that Africans can see, use and benefit from.
And Rwanda’s experience and approach show that integration may carry fewer risks than many governments fear and far greater benefits than they have yet realized.
