Modelled on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), signed at the Extraordinary Summit of the African Union, which convened in Kigali, Rwanda, on 21 March 2018, is designed to facilitate a single continental trade regulation and integration framework for trade disciplines and intentioned to boost intra-Africa trade. AfCFTA came on the backdrop of not less than eight regional economic communities (RECs), which are loosely regulated. The study finds that AfCFTA can become a beacon of development in the African continent, provided an array of issues including addressing the multiplicity of RECs, putting in place a Development-focused migration and labour policy or developing a side labour agreement similar to that of NAFTA to address other issues like harmonisation of treatment and conditions of workforce and pursuing industrialisation that will help manage the negative spillovers of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).

JEL Codes: C23, F10, F13, F14, F15, F17, F19, K33, K41

仿照北美自由贸易协定（NAFTA），于2018年3月21日在卢旺达基加利召开的非洲联盟特别首脑会议上签署的《非洲大陆自由贸易协定》（AfCFTA）旨在促进单一针对贸易学科的大陆贸易法规和一体化框架，旨在促进非洲内部贸易。非洲自由贸易协定的背景是不少于八个宽松的区域经济共同体（REC）。该研究发现，非洲自由贸易区可以成为非洲大陆发展的灯塔，它提供了一系列问题，包括解决REC的多样性，制定以发展为重点的移民和劳工政策。 或制定类似于北美自由贸易协定的附带劳动协议，以解决诸如协调待遇和劳动力条件以及追求工业化之类的其他问题，这将有助于管理第四次工业革命（4IR）的负面溢出。

JEL代码： C23，F10，F13，F14，F15，F17，F19，K33，K41