Legal Strategies for Strengthening Regional Value Chains and Market Access: A Rules-Based Pathway to African Economic Integration

Abstract

Africa’s economic integration increasingly depends on the capacity of African countries to move beyond fragmented national markets towards interconnected regional and continental value chains. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) provides an important legal foundation for this transformation, but preferential market access alone cannot create productive regional value chains. Effective integration requires domestic legal systems, customs institutions, investment frameworks, competition rules, intellectual property protection, standards regimes, digital trade laws and dispute-resolution mechanisms that enable firms to operate predictably across borders. This article examines legal strategies for strengthening regional value chains and market access as a pathway to deeper African economic integration. Using a qualitative documentary research design, the study analyses the AfCFTA Agreement and its protocols, African Union instruments, United Nations publications, World Bank and African Development Bank reports, and relevant trade and investment literature. The article argues that the principal legal challenge is not the absence of continental rules but the uneven translation of those rules into domestic and regional commercial practice. It finds that regulatory fragmentation, non-tariff barriers, complex rules of origin, weak customs coordination, inadequate investment protection, limited competition enforcement, intellectual property constraints and digital regulatory gaps can reduce the commercial value of continental market access. The article recommends coordinated domestic legal alignment, simplified rules of origin and customs procedures, stronger investment and competition regimes, harmonised standards and digital trade frameworks, and accessible mechanisms for enforcing commercial rights across African markets.