The Director-General for Southern Africa at the African Development Bank (AfDB), Kennedy Mbekeani, has called for stronger policy alignment and private capital mobilisation to unlock Africa’s trade potential under the African Continental Free Trade Area(AfCTA).
Mbekeani made the call while delivering a keynote address at the 2026 Africa Trade Conference in South Africa on Tuesday. The event was monitored by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) from Lagos.
The conference, organised by Access Bank, has the theme: “Turning Vision into Velocity: Building Africa’s Trade Ecosystem for Real-World Impact.”
According to him, Africa possesses the resources, institutions and capital needed to drive its development but must strengthen coordination and confidence in its own systems to accelerate economic growth and regional integration.
He noted that AfCTA provided a major opportunity to transform the continent into a single market capable of boosting production, consumption and trade among African countries.
“Africa has the resources, the financial institutions and the capital required for development. What we need is stronger coordination, improved policies and confidence in our own systems,” he said.
Mbekeani said the continent’s large population and vast natural resources placed it in a strong position to build one of the world’s biggest consumer markets if governments harmonised policies and created enabling environments for businesses.
According to him, Africa’s development challenge is not a lack of resources but the need to mobilise capital and channel it effectively into infrastructure and productive sectors.
“We must focus on mobilising private capital at a continental scale. The funds needed for Africa’s development already exist within the continent,” he said.
He urged African governments to deepen partnerships with the private sector in areas such as energy, transport, water and education to bridge the continent’s infrastructure deficit.
Mbekeani noted that successful public-private partnerships across several countries had shown that private investors could deliver critical infrastructure when supported by clear policies and effective regulation.
“We need governments to create enabling environments while the private sector participates actively in building the infrastructure that will support regional integration,” he said.
He also stressed the need for African institutions to shape the narrative about the continent’s investment climate, saying perceptions about risk in Africa were often exaggerated.
“Africa must begin to tell its own story. The perception of risk on the continent is sometimes higher than the reality,” Mbekeani said.
He added that stronger regional markets would reduce the continent’s exposure to global shocks and enable African countries to process more of their resources locally.
According to him, deeper economic integration will increase intra-African trade, strengthen supply chains and enhance the continent’s ability to withstand global disruptions.
Mbekeani said the AfCFTA represented a historic opportunity to build a truly integrated African market and urged governments, financial institutions and businesses to take concrete steps to turn the vision into reality.
Also speaking, the Chief Executive Officer of the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), Mr Mike Ogbalu, said high transaction costs and fragmented payment systems had long hindered trade within Africa.
Ogbalu noted that some of the world’s most expensive payment corridors existed in Africa, making cross-border transactions costly for businesses and individuals.
“It is ironic that the poorest people often pay the most to move money across borders. Some of the most expensive payment corridors in the world are in Africa,” he said.
He noted that PAPSS was created to address this challenge by enabling businesses and individuals to make cross-border payments in their local currencies across the continent.
Igbalu explained that the platform allowed payments initiated in one African currency to be received in another within seconds, eliminating the need for third-party currencies and lengthy correspondent banking processes.
“A payment can originate in Nigeria in naira and arrive in Egypt in Egyptian pounds within seconds. That is the efficiency we are bringing to African trade,” he said.
According to him, the system guarantees that transactions are completed within 120 seconds, although most payments are currently processed in about 12 seconds.
He added that PAPSS had reduced the cost of cross-border payments by more than 98 per cent while ensuring transactions complied with global standards on anti-money laundering, sanctions screening and fraud management.
According to him, the platform currently operates in about 20 African countries with more than 170 participating commercial banks and fintech firms connected to the network.
“For many African entrepreneurs, their real market is not just their home country but the entire continent of over 1.4 billion people,” Ogbalu said.
He added that improving payment efficiency would help African businesses expand beyond national borders and unlock the full potential of intra-African trade under the AfCFTA.
