African leaders gathered at an extraordinary summit of the African Union (AU) in Kigali, Rwanda, on Wednesday 21 March to launch the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), with high hopes across the continent that this mega trade pact will boost intra-African commerce and lead to important development gains. The five-day summit, which saw a series of meetings in various configurations, culminated in the signing ceremony of the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA Agreement) by African leaders. This occurred during an Extraordinary Session of the AU’s Assembly of the Heads of State and Government, which was preceded by meetings of the AU’s Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC) and Executive Council, as well as a business forum. With the legal framework of the AfCFTA now agreed, African countries will need to tackle the next steps for making the free trade area a reality on the ground. This includes defining members’ schedules of commitments – the concessions they will offer to other AfCFTA members – for both goods and services and the preparation of product-specific rules of origin. If successfully implemented, the AfCFTA will constitute the world’s largest free trade area in terms of membership, comprising the 55 member...