African Pastoral Markets Development (APMD)-led policy dialogue on the assessment of trade policy inconsistencies, including the tariff and non-tariff barriers (NTBs/TBs)

9 July, 2025

The African Union – Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR)

During the 10th Extraordinary Summit of the African Union (AU) in Kigali, Rwanda, the member states signed a framework agreement—the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) with the aim of:

Creating a single continental market for goods and services with free movement of business people and investment, thus accelerating the establishment of a Custom Union.
Expanding intra-African trade through better harmonization, coordination of trade liberalization and facilitation instruments across the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and Africa at large.
Enhancing competitiveness at the industry and enterprise level through exploitation of opportunities for scale of production, continental market access and better reallocation of resources.

The initiative, therefore, is expected to bring 1.5 billion people from Africa (World Meter,2025) and a combined GDP of $3.4+ trillion, with the potential to boost intra-African trade by 52.3% in the next few years. According to the IMF, this increase is to uplift 30 million Africans out of extreme poverty and increase income by $450 million by 2035.

Disproportionately, the livestock trade has been highly affected by non-tariff barriers, inconsistent sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards, and lack of mutual recognition of health certification and product quality. These disparities limit market access, inflate transaction costs and discourage formal cross-border livestock trade, especially for the pastoral economies that depend on fluid regional markets.

Therefore, in the absence of harmonized trade policies, livestock products are exposed to duplicated inspection, varied tariffs and mismatched requirements, which eventually delay trade flows and lead to high levels of informal and illegal trade.

It is on this need that the African Union Inter-African Bureau of Animal Resources (AU-IBAR), through the African Markets Development (APMD) Platform project, has sought a three-day policy dialogue to examine livestock trade, a sector marked by high economic potential but marred by fragmented regulatory environments across African countries.

Through this convention, both public and private sector actors across borders will not only surface shared challenges but also catalyze a sense of co-ownership in building a harmonized policy environment that would support inclusive and secure livestock mobility.

The policy dialogue, therefore, aims to:

Take stock of the status of AfCFTA ratification and implementation, highlighting key lessons and best practices.
Identify and map existing trade policy inconsistencies, including the tariff and non-tariff barriers and other regulatory frameworks that affect cross-border livestock trade within the Horn of Africa.
Jointly plan and build consensus on priority actions to enhance cross-border livestock trade.
Generate practical recommendations for harmonized trade policies that are aligned to the AfCFTA framework.
Develop coordinated roadmaps for spelling out defined actions, responsibilities and monitoring mechanisms to guide the implementation of policy reforms in advancing cross-border trade.

Beyond the technical discussions, it is expected that the APMD-led policy dialogue will be creating a strategic platform for collective reflection on the fragmentation of national policies and the urgent need for coordinated action.

It is expected that the outcome of the convention will be to institutionalize an action-oriented roadmap that will be embedded within the national livestock strategies and linked to the AfCFTA monitoring frameworks.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of The African Union – Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR).

Written by: Staff Writer

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