Received by President Évariste Ndayishimiye, the delegation reviewed implementation. Government, customs administration and the private sector will jointly develop a country profile and an implementation roadmap

Accra, 6 August 2026 — The Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) concluded on 4 August a two-day official mission to the Republic of Burundi, conducted at the highest level. The AfCFTA Champion, H.E. Mahamadou Issoufou, former President of the Republic of Niger, carried to the Head of State the continental advocacy that his role as Champion confers on him: to engage Heads of State and Government on the implementation of the Agreement. The Secretary-General of the AfCFTA, H.E. Wamkele Mene, led the Secretariat’s delegation, which included private-sector specialists.

The delegation was received in audience by the President of the Republic of Burundi and Chairperson of the African Union, H.E. Évariste Ndayishimiye. The discussions addressed the assessment of AfCFTA implementation, with particular attention to the follow-up of signatures, of ratifications and of the effective application of the Protocols, all indispensable to accelerating the continent’s economic integration. The Secretary-General reaffirmed the institution’s full readiness to accompany Burundi in realising its Vision “An emerging country by 2040, a developed country by 2060”. The Head of State reaffirmed his commitment to continental integration and his full support for the initiatives designed to overcome the obstacles to implementation.

Speaking after the audience, the AfCFTA Champion set out where the Agreement stands. Of the 55 member states of the African Union, 54 have signed the Agreement and 50 have ratified it. The Protocols from the second phase of the negotiations — intellectual property, competition, digital trade, women and youth in trade, and investment — are now before the State Parties. He situated Burundi’s national horizon within the continental one: emergence by 2040 and development by 2060, ahead of 2063, the centenary of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity and the term of the African Union’s Agenda 2063.

It is an agenda that provides for a developed Africa in 2063, an Africa at peace, a united Africa, an Africa of influence among the nations. -H.E. Mahamadou Issoufou, former President of the Republic of Niger, AfCFTA Champion, Bujumbura, 4 August 2026.

The mission had opened on 3 August with the Minister of Mineral Resources, Energy, Industry, Trade and Tourism. The composition of that meeting is itself an indication of the stage implementation has reached: alongside the Minister were the Permanent Secretary, the Director of External Trade, the Director of Industry, the Deputy Commissioner General of the Burundi Revenue Authority and the President of the Federal Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Burundi. Trade policy, customs administration and business rarely sit at one table. 

The two sides agreed on the next step, and it is a concrete one. A technical team will develop a country profile and an implementation roadmap for Burundi, owned jointly by the Government and the private sector.

The Secretary-General set out the instruments now available to enterprises: the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, which allows businesses to trade and settle in African currencies rather than routing through a third one; the Africa Trade Gateway, the continental digital platform developed with Afreximbank and the Economic Commission for Africa; and the AfCFTA Adjustment Fund, which supports governments and businesses in managing the costs of the transition to the single market. He encouraged Burundi to identify its financing needs and to bring them forward to the Fund.

Connecting these instruments to Burundi’s broader trade and development ambitions, the Secretary-General emphasised:

“Burundi has built a strong foundation through its regional economic communities. Through the instruments we have developed, the AfCFTA must now enable Burundian businesses to reach the wider continental market and advance the country’s priorities in agro-processing, mining, energy and digital trade.”

He also gave the measure of the direction of travel — intra-African trade rose by 12.4 per cent in 2024, to US$220 billion — and named the obstacles with equal directness: the cost of trade, connectivity and infrastructure gaps.

On the same day, the Secretariat convened a roundtable with the Burundian private sector, co-chaired by Ms Cynthia Gnassingbe-Essonam, Director of Private Sector Engagement and Communications at the AfCFTA Secretariat, and the Hon. Olivier Suguru, President of the Federal Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Burundi. The Chamber brings together 26 sectoral and cross-sector business associations, including those representing women entrepreneurs, youth entrepreneurs and the crafts sector. The Secretariat presented the current status of implementation and the instruments available to businesses, and the discussion turned to the practical difficulties facing Burundian enterprises seeking to trade within Africa.

For his part, the Minister reaffirmed Burundi’s readiness to implement the Agreement and indicated that the country would draw on its chairmanship of the African Union to accelerate that effort. He set out national priorities in logistics and transport, supported by energy and mining, alongside the macroeconomic and regulatory reforms under way to strengthen the business and investment environment. On tea and coffee, he identified the diversification of export markets, and the harmonisation of standards and conformity procedures that makes diversification possible, as the central question.

Burundi deposited its instrument of ratification on 17 June 2021 and validated a national AfCFTA implementation strategy in December 2021, supplemented in December 2024. Close to half of the country’s exports by value are already delivered to other African markets. The Agreement therefore does not create that relationship: it lowers its cost, secures its rules and widens its reach.

The conversation continues at continental level. Burundian enterprises will find the next opportunities to meet buyers, financiers and regulators from across the continent at Biashara Afrika 2027 and at the Intra-African Trade Fair 2027 in Lagos, Nigeria, from 5 to 11 November 2027.

About the AfCFTA 

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is one of the flagship projects of Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want, the African Union’s long-term development strategy. The Agreement establishing the AfCFTA entered into force on 30 May 2019 and brings together the 55 Member States of the African Union in a single market of about 1.4 billion people with a combined GDP of approximately US$3.4 trillion. The AfCFTA is the largest free trade area in the world by number of participating countries. The AfCFTA Secretariat, based in Accra, Ghana, and led by Secretary-General H.E. Wamkele Mene, coordinates implementation of the Agreement in cooperation with State Parties, the Regional Economic Communities and continental institutions.

Media contact 

Alexandre Siewe

Senior Advisor, Communications — AfCFTA Secretariat 

Email: [email protected]   Web: au-afcfta.org