- Only 13% of Africans Know AfCFTA Despite Growing Support for Freer Trade
Africa’s most ambitious economic integration project is confronting an unexpected obstacle: the people it was designed to benefit largely do not know it exists.
A new Afrobarometer flagship report has found that only 13% of Africans across 38 countries have heard of the African Continental Free Trade Area, even as public support for freer international trade has risen sharply over the past five years.
The findings, published in the 2026 report Beyond Borders: Citizen Perspectives on a Shifting Global Order, point to a widening disconnect between high-level continental policymaking and public awareness of one of Africa’s most important economic projects.
That gap matters because the AfCFTA is intended to transform the continent into a more integrated market, deepen cross-border commerce and create opportunities for businesses ranging from large manufacturers to small traders and entrepreneurs.
Yet the survey suggests the agreement remains, for many Africans, an elite policy conversation rather than a widely understood economic project.
The contrast is particularly striking because Africans appear increasingly supportive of the very principles underpinning the AfCFTA.
According to Afrobarometer, 62% of respondents said governments should make international trade easier in order to create economic opportunities, compared with 34% who preferred restricting imports to protect domestic industries.
Five years earlier, support for freer trade stood at 51%. The direction of public opinion is therefore clear: more Africans favour openness, commerce and access to wider markets.
But most do not connect those aspirations to the AfCFTA.
Trade agreements do not succeed simply because governments sign protocols or remove tariffs. They work when businesses use them, traders understand them, logistics firms adapt to them and consumers begin to participate in the opportunities they create.
If the public remains largely unaware of the agreement, the risk is that many of its potential beneficiaries may never take advantage of it.
The country hosts the AfCFTA Secretariat and was among the early supporters of the continental trade pact. Ghana has also positioned itself diplomatically as a major champion of African economic integration.
Yet only 17% of Ghanaians surveyed said they were aware of the AfCFTA. That means more than four out of every five respondents in the country hosting the agreement’s Secretariat had not heard of it.
The finding raises questions over whether Ghana’s continental leadership has been matched by effective domestic communication.
Guinea-Bissau recorded the highest level at 27%, followed by Gabon at 26% and Cabo Verde at 24%.
At the other end of the scale, awareness stood at just 5% in Tunisia and 4% in Mauritania. The overall pattern suggests that the AfCFTA has struggled to move beyond government institutions, policy forums and business circles into mainstream public consciousness.
“Despite being one of the most ambitious economic-integration projects in history, the AfCFTA remains largely unknown to ordinary Africans,” the report states.
It further notes that awareness is disproportionately concentrated among better-educated citizens and regular news consumers, pointing to “a disconnect between elite-level policy ambition and public reach.”
If awareness is concentrated among citizens who already have greater access to information, the agreement may be failing to reach the smaller businesses, informal traders and entrepreneurs that governments repeatedly identify as central to Africa’s economic transformation. Those groups dominate employment and commercial activity in many African countries.
They are also the ones most likely to confront practical trade barriers such as customs procedures, transport costs, border delays, documentation requirements and limited access to financing. The survey suggests that the bigger problem is not that Africans reject free trade. Support for greater international commerce is strongest in several parts of the continent.
Central Africa, West Africa and Southern Africa all recorded support levels above 64%. At country level, Liberia recorded the strongest preference for freer trade at 86%, followed by Eswatini at 85% and Chad at 79%.
Trade liberalisation can involve difficult domestic reforms. Governments may need to modernise customs systems, adjust tariffs, harmonise regulations and invest in ports, roads and other trade infrastructure.
Some sectors may also face greater competition from firms elsewhere on the continent.
Without a clear understanding of what the AfCFTA is intended to achieve, citizens may struggle to see the benefits of reforms that impose short-term costs or disruption.
The survey also reveals that Africans’ enthusiasm for trade is broader than the continental integration agenda itself.
Around 66% of respondents said governments should strengthen commercial relationships with countries around the world. Only 20% preferred prioritising trade within Africa, while just 8% favoured focusing primarily on immediate subregions.
Much of the agreement’s appeal has been framed around boosting intra-African trade, reducing dependence on external markets and building regional value chains. Yet many citizens appear to view African integration as only one part of a wider global trade strategy.
For policymakers, that distinction should not necessarily be interpreted as rejection of the AfCFTA. It may instead suggest that Africans see continental integration as a means to become more competitive globally rather than as an alternative to trading with the rest of the world.
If the AfCFTA is presented only as a project to trade more within Africa, it may fail to capture the ambitions of citizens who are looking outward. If it is presented as a platform that helps African businesses scale across the continent before competing globally, public engagement may become easier.
Governments, Afrobarometer argues, must explain more clearly how deeper intra-African trade can serve as a stepping stone towards broader international competitiveness.
Without that connection, the agreement risks being understood as a technical policy project rather than an instrument of economic opportunity.
The implications for small and medium-sized enterprises are particularly important. SMEs account for a large share of employment and commercial activity across the continent, yet many remain excluded from formal export markets.
Information must reach market associations, transport operators, SMEs, manufacturers, farmers and informal businesses in language they understand and through channels they actually use. Hosting the AfCFTA Secretariat gives the country symbolic and strategic visibility.
But a 17% awareness rate suggests that proximity to the institution has not automatically translated into public understanding.
For Ghana, the challenge is therefore twofold: to continue projecting leadership internationally while ensuring citizens and businesses domestically understand how the agreement could affect them. The wider finding from Afrobarometer is ultimately encouraging and troubling at the same time.
Encouraging because Africans increasingly support open trade. Troubling because the continent’s flagship mechanism for achieving deeper trade integration remains unfamiliar to most of them. That disconnect could become one of the AfCFTA’s biggest implementation risks.
The agreement may succeed in negotiations, legal frameworks and institutional architecture while still failing to build the public constituency needed to sustain it politically.
Trade agreements are durable when citizens can see benefits in their daily economic lives. It requires visible opportunities, practical information and clear evidence that cross-border commerce can improve incomes, create jobs and expand markets.
For Africa, the problem is therefore not a lack of appetite for trade. It is a failure to connect that appetite to the AfCFTA itself. Closing that gap may prove just as important as reducing tariffs or removing non-tariff barriers.
Without broader public understanding, one of the continent’s most consequential economic projects risks remaining what the survey already suggests it is today: highly ambitious, widely discussed among policymakers, but still largely unknown to the people whose participation will ultimately determine whether it succeeds.
