Accra, Ghana, 13 February 2026 – The African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat hosted the National Implementation Committees (NICs) of Republic of Uganda and Republic of The Gambia, who were in Accra as part of a peer learning and benchmarking visit to the Ghana AfCFTA National Coordination Office.

With the AfCFTA agenda now firmly centred on implementation of the Agreement, the visit provided an opportunity to exchange practical experiences on activating institutional mechanisms to deliver on the AfCFTA. Ghana’s model has demonstrated notable progress in operationalising coordination structures to support national implementation.

Both Uganda and The Gambia have taken concrete steps to implement the AfCFTA, including the establishment of functional National Implementation Committees and the gazetting of their Provisional Schedules of Tariff Concessions. These measures reflect their preparedness to commence trading under the Agreement.

The engagement brought together nine delegates drawn from Ministries of Trade and Industry, Customs Divisions, and the private sector, who constitute the membership of the NICs in their respective countries. The delegations benefitted from the benchmarking visit and committed to mainstreaming the lessons learned into their workflows to scale up implementation of the AfCFTA.