High-Quality Border Infrastructure Key to Africa’s Trade and Peace, Say Leaders at ARF 2025
Development leaders attending the sixth Africa Resilience Forum have called for the construction of high-quality border infrastructure to facilitate the free movement of goods and people across the continent. The forum, which took place from 1 to 3 October in Abidjan, focused on strategies to strengthen regional integration and promote peace through trade.
During the panel session “Regional Integration and Trade as Pathways to Peace”, experts emphasised the need for single, digitised border posts between neighbouring countries. Mohammed Abdiker, Chief of Staff of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said: “The ideal is to have a single border post between countries – strong infrastructure like that would help facilitate trade. Political will is essential, and we must advocate to our governments on the importance of the movement of goods and people.”
Abdiker highlighted successful initiatives, including a project for a single border post between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, and a current project between the Central African Republic and Cameroon supported by the African Development Bank, aimed at improving cross-border trade.
The African Union’s African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), launched in January 2021, has been ratified by 49 countries, creating a potential market of 1.3 billion people. The African Development Bank Group supports this initiative by financing single border posts and trade facilitation centres, such as the One Stop Border Post between Tanzania and Kenya, and a juxtaposed checkpoint between Benin and Togo.
Magdalene Dagoseh, Liberia’s Minister of Commerce and Industry, highlighted the role of digitisation in border services to control the movement of people and goods and curb corruption. Ziad Hamoui, President of Borderless Alliance, called for civil society involvement in policy design, noting the significant volume of informal trade across African borders.
The Africa Resilience Forum, held biennially by the African Development Bank, brings together policymakers and practitioners from the humanitarian, development, and peace sectors to explore strategies for prevention, resilience, and peacebuilding investments across Africa.
