TITLE:
From Ratification to Utilisation: Zimbabwe’s Operational Readiness for Integration into the African Continental Free Trade Area Strategic Clusters 2020-2025
AUTHORS:
Patience Gawe
KEYWORDS:
AfCFTA, Zimbabwe, Regional Integration, Rules of Origin, Trade Facilitation, Productive Capacity, Trade Policy, Special Economic Zones
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.13 No.8,
August
26,
2026
ABSTRACT: The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) offers African economies an opportunity to expand intra-African trade, deepen regional value chains, and strengthen industrial transformation. For Zimbabwe, however, the benefits of the AfCFTA depend on the country’s ability to translate formal treaty commitments into practical market access, firm-level compliance, productive capacity, and trade-support systems. This article evaluates Zimbabwe’s level of integration into the AfCFTA, with emphasis on policy alignment, institutional readiness, productive capacity, Rules of Origin compliance, trade facilitation, and market participation. Methods: The article draws on a mixed-methods study that combines documentary analysis, survey results analysed in SPSS, and interview data analysed in NVivo. The analysis focuses on Objective A of a broader study and integrates evidence from trade policy indicators, firm-level responses, and stakeholder interviews. The findings show that Zimbabwe’s integration into the AfCFTA is moderate in formal commitments but partial in practical implementation. While the country has ratified the Agreement and engaged in continental policy processes, operational barriers such as delayed tariff publication, incomplete legal framework adaptation, limited market-access tools, protectionist regulations, weak industrial capacity, uneven readiness for Rules of Origin, inadequate trade finance, and persistent trade bottlenecks hinder progress. Evidence shows that many businesses support regional market access yet still prefer protection from regional competition. The findings indicate moderate advances in formal participation and trade facilitation institutions, but partial or incomplete progress in tariff adaptation, industrial capacity, infrastructure, trade finance, market information, SME involvement, and factor-market integration. Overall, Zimbabwe’s main challenge is not political will but translating commitment into enforceable reforms and competitive exports. To improve integration, efforts must focus on legal harmonisation, phased removal of protectionism, support for Rules of Origin, industrial upgrading, better access to trade finance and market intelligence, and more inclusive trade systems.