It would not be an overstatement to say that 2018 was a momentous year in the history of regional integration in Africa, since it was then that the African Union Member States established the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Aside from its continental ambit, departing from the focus on integration through regional economic communities (RECs) in Africa, the timing of the formation of the AfCFTA is interesting and commendable. It was formed at a time when many were talking about the return of “deglobalization” (referring to less integration among economies) and the rise of populism and protectionism, challenging the post-Cold War era of free trade areas, even in countries that were traditionally the ardent advocates of globalization.

Trade and technology development policies almost always have distributional consequences. There may be a few exceptions for which the implementation of a policy produces either gains or no loss for nearly everyone, what economists would call a Pareto improvement. But these instances are relatively rare. You could argue that for early-stage developing countries, the export-driven growth model that draws surplus labor into the modernizing manufacturing and urban sectors comes close to meeting this standard. But even there, the gains are not spread evenly, and income inequality normally increases.

With soaring food prices, climate change, and rapid population growth undermining food security in Africa, the continent is in dire need of an agricultural revolution.
Fortunately, steps taken by three forward-looking countries show that success is not only possible but well within reach.

The COVID-19 pandemic, compounded by supply-chain disruptions and surging inflation, has highlighted the fragilities of Africa’s food systems, leading to a 60Pct increase in hunger across the continent in 2020 alone. And climate change, which is expected to degrade freshwater ecosystems and arable lands, rendering vast areas of Africa uninhabitable, will only make things worse.

As the west is wrestling with Russia and China to maintain the ‘rule-based international order’, maintaining neutral positions on both fronts is difficult for Ethiopia and other developing countries.

On 22 October 2022, the United States introduced a national security strategy which reads “The most pressing challenge facing our vision is from powers that layer authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy. Russia and [the Peoples republic of China (PRC)] pose different challenges. Russia poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order today, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown. The PRC, by contrast, is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to advance that objective.”