Peace, Security and Stability as Key Factors to the Successes of the AfCFTA Collective Efforts Towards the Agenda 2063

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) represents Africa’s most ambitious economic integration initiative, driving towards the African Union’s Agenda 2063 vision of a prosperous, peaceful and integrated continent. However, the persistent prevalence of armed conflicts, insecurity and political instability across Sub-Saharan Africa constitutes one of the principal impediments to the realisation of the AfCFTA’s strategic objectives. Drawing on a systematic review of the empirical, conceptual and policy-oriented literature on trade, integration and conflict, supplemented by documented country-level conflict and economic indicators, this study examines the nexus between peace, security and stability and the collective economic aspirations of the AfCFTA in the digital economic epoch. Findings reveal that conflict-afflicted states, including Mozambique, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia and South Sudan, have experienced significant deterioration in their Gross National Income, social fabric and economic productivity as a direct consequence of instabilities. The study concludes that peace, security and stability are not merely desirable preconditions for economic development but are indispensable foundational requirements for the success of the AfCFTA and the broader Agenda 2063 aspirations, and the literature synthesis addresses a causal and contextual gap that the broader trade-conflict literature has itself identified as unresolved.

Peace, security, stability, conflict, AfCFTA, Agenda 2063, Sub-Saharan Africa, economic integration, border governance.

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