The AfCFTA Protocol on Investment: what have we learned from undertaking gap analyses?
This seminar will feature a presentation and panel discussion led by Professor Dirk Willem te Velde, Director of International Economics at ODI Global & Professor of Practice at the Centre for Global Finance, SOAS University of London.
Time: 13:00-15:00 (UK Time), Wednesday, 14 October 2026
Chair: Professor Hong Bo, SOAS University of London
Online venue: Click here to join the seminar on Teams (For any inquiry about how to join the online seminar, please contact Dr. Meng Xie at xm1@soas.ac.uk)
Abstract
The AfCFTA Protocol on Investment, adopted in February 2023, requires State Parties to progressively align their national investment laws and frameworks within five years of its entry into force. This is expected to raise (intra-Africa) investment. This seminar will discuss a synthesis report on the results of applying a structured gap analysis methodology developed jointly by the AfCFTA Secretariat and ODI Global to assess how national and regional investment regimes align with the Protocol’s provisions. Drawing on gap analyses conducted across a diverse group of countries and regional economic communities, the report identifies both common and specific reform priorities, institutional constraints, and emerging good practices. The empirical data from more than 20 countries show that implementation gaps persist in areas such as operationalisation of National Focal Points, aftercare services, dispute settlement frameworks, digitalisation, and sustainable development provisions. The report concludes that gap analyses are not just standalone diagnostic exercises, but practical reform tools. Now embedded within the AfCFTA Protocol on Investment Implementation and Support Programme (PIISP), they provide a structured pathway for sequencing reforms, aligning legal frameworks, and translating continental commitments into concrete national action. The session will discuss the impact of investment gap analysis, including on investment regulation and FDI.
Professor Dirk Willem te Velde will introduce the main findings, drawing on a five-year AfCFTA support programme funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). He will then moderate a discussion on the implications for investment regulation and foreign direct investment (FDI), with contributions from:
Roslyn Ng’eno, co-author and Senior Investment Expert, Investment Division, AfCFTA Secretariat;
Dode Seidu, Co-ordinator of the AfCFTA National Action Committee and researcher on Ghana;
Beatrice Chaytor and Charity Mwaniki, authors of the Sierra Leone and Kenya investment gap analyses.
Other co-authors will also attend, and participants are warmly encouraged to contribute to the discussion.
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Lead Presenter
Professor Dirk Willem te Velde is a Principal Research Fellow and Director of the International Economic Development Group at ODI Global. He is the Director of Supporting Investment and Trade in Africa and Supporting Economic Transformation programmes. He is also Professor of Practice at the Centre for Global Finance at SOAS University of London and holds a PhD from Birkbeck College, University of London. He has written and edited 20 books/monographs, 30 peer-reviewed articles, and 40 book chapters related mainly to investment, trade, macro-economics, aid for trade, and economic transformation. His research has featured in the BBC, China Daily, Economist, Financial Times, the Guardian, Asian and African newspapers and TV, with hundreds of media hits. He has advised country governments and parliaments in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, including both houses of the UK parliament, donor agencies such as FCDO, European Commission, UN, and the World Bank, and government ministers and heads of state in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Nepal. He was also Team Leader for the European Report on Development (ERD) on Combining Finance and Policies to Implement a Transformative Post-2015 Agenda, and on Confronting scarcity: managing the water-energy-land nexus for inclusive and sustainable growth. He is Director of the Secretariat of the All Party Parliamentary Group Trade out of Poverty, a Member of the UK DIT Strategic Trade Advisory Group, and an alternate on the UK NCP Steering Board (for the OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises).