African trade and competition regulators have called for stronger continental cooperation and harmonised competition laws to protect businesses, consumers, and regional markets as implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) gathers pace across the continent.
The calls were made during a high-level conference on Competition Policy and Law held alongside the ongoing Biashara Afrika 2026 Forum in Lomé, where officials warned that weak enforcement regimes, market distortions, and anti-competitive practices could undermine Africa’s economic integration ambitions.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Mr. Abe Talime, Director General of Trade for Togo, described competition policy as a critical pillar for ensuring fairness, transparency, and security within Africa’s emerging single market.
According to him, competition law must go beyond policy declarations and focus on practical implementation mechanisms capable of supporting sustainable regional trade.
“Competition policy and law are essential for promoting trade exchanges within a framework of fairness, security, and healthy competition,” Mr Talime stated.
He stressed the need for African countries to institutionalise competition principles at both national and regional levels while strengthening cooperation between governments, regulators, and the private sector.
Mr Talime welcomed delegates to Lomé and praised Togo’s leadership for supporting continental dialogue on economic integration and trade governance.
ECOWAS Warns Against Fragmented Competition Enforcement
Delivering a keynote address, Mr Simeon Koffi, Director General of the ECOWAS Regional Competition Authority, said Africa’s regional markets continue to face multiple structural challenges that threaten fair competition and economic integration.
He identified weak competitiveness against external markets, barriers to market entry, the dominance of informal economic activities, institutional weaknesses, and inconsistent enforcement of regional trade rules among the major concerns confronting African economies.
Mr Koffi also cited cross-border anti-competitive practices, disparities in national legal frameworks, and financial constraints affecting competition authorities across member states.
“Purely national solutions have shown their limits,” he warned.
According to him, many African countries lack the institutional and technical capacity to independently address increasingly sophisticated anti-competitive business practices that now extend across borders.
He therefore called for stronger collaboration between regional competition authorities and the future AfCFTA Competition Authority to ensure coordinated market regulation across the continent.
“In many respects, the experience of Regional Economic Communities constitutes one of the foundations upon which the AfCFTA now rests,” he said.
Mr Koffi noted that ECOWAS had made significant progress in establishing regional competition rules but admitted that enforcement challenges remained a major obstacle.
He expressed optimism that lessons from regional blocs would help shape an effective continental competition regime capable of supporting Africa’s long-term integration agenda.
COMESA Highlights Need for Continental Enforcement Framework
Officials from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) also stressed the importance of building a harmonised continental competition system to support the AfCFTA.
The COMESA Competition Commission said regional cooperation had already demonstrated that coordinated enforcement mechanisms were both possible and necessary for deeper economic integration.
According to the Commission, competition authorities must be empowered to tackle market abuse, unfair trade practices, cartels, and monopolistic behaviour that could distort the benefits of free trade.
“Without strong safeguards against anti-competitive practices, the benefits of integration may not reach businesses and consumers as intended,” the Commission stated.
The Commission further called on African governments to strengthen national competition institutions while deepening cooperation at the regional and continental levels.
Officials noted that as African markets become increasingly interconnected, competition enforcement systems must evolve to reflect the realities of cross-border commerce and regional value chains.
AfCFTA and the Push for Fair Markets
The conference forms part of broader efforts to operationalise the AfCFTA, which seeks to create the world’s largest free trade area by number of participating countries.
Competition policy is expected to become one of the key regulatory pillars supporting the agreement by ensuring fair market access, consumer protection, and balanced participation for businesses across member states.
Participants at the forum said a coordinated African competition regime would also help attract investment, promote innovation, protect small and medium-sized enterprises, and strengthen consumer confidence within the continental market.
Delegates are expected to adopt recommendations aimed at improving institutional cooperation, harmonising legal frameworks, enhancing enforcement capacity, and supporting the eventual establishment of an effective AfCFTA Competition Authority.
The conference brought together officials from Regional Economic Communities (RECs), continental institutions, trade experts, private sector actors, and development partners to deliberate on the future of competition regulation under the AfCFTA framework.
The Biashara Afrika 2026 Forum continues in Lomé with discussions focused on trade facilitation, industrialisation, regional integration, infrastructure, and private sector development under the AfCFTA framework.
