About Trade Africa

Trade Africa exists to close the gap between African trade policy and the traders who should be benefiting from it.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) gives businesses across 54 African countries real, tangible benefits, reduced tariffs, simplified customs procedures, and access to a continental market. Most MSMEs have never accessed those benefits, not because they don’t qualify, but because the information has never reached them in a form they can act on.

We translate AfCFTA policy into practical, plain-language guidance, covering rules of origin, Certificates of Origin, export compliance, cross-border payment safety, and Nigeria’s Simplified Trade Regime.

We started with Nigeria’s fashion and textile traders on the Lagos–Accra corridor. We’ve since expanded to support agro-processors and food exporters, because the underlying compliance knowledge, how to prove where your goods came from, how to move them safely across a border, how to get paid, applies whether you’re exporting Ankara fabric or processed cassava.

Our approach

We are an early-stage organization. We don’t have all the answers yet, and we’re building this with traders, not just for them, through direct conversations, a growing WhatsApp community, and a commitment to catching real problems before they cost real money.