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Africa’s competition chiefs forge united regulatory front
NEWS ANALYSIS | JULIUS BUSINGE | Four of Africa’s most influential regional competition authorities have signed a cooperation pact that could reshape how cross-border mergers, consumer protection and market conduct are regulated across 38 countries.
The Memorandum of Understanding, signed in Livingstone, Zambia on Feb.26, unites the COMESA Competition and Consumer Commission (CCCC), the ECOWAS Regional Competition Authority, the EAC Competition Authority and the competition arm of the West African Economic and Monetary Union.
While cooperation among the blocs began informally in 2023, the new framework formalises collaboration at a critical moment — as implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area accelerates and Africa’s largest markets deepen regulatory oversight.
“This is what collaboration should look like,” said Willard Mwemba, chief executive officer of the CCCC. “What began as an informal arrangement has transformed into a structured partnership that strengthens the position of Regional Economic Communities within the AfCFTA framework.”
AfCFTA alignment
At the heart of the pact lies a strategic calculation: Africa’s Regional Economic Communities want to remain central players as continental rules take shape under the AfCFTA Competition Protocol.
The protocol aims to harmonise competition regulation across Africa. But that ambition raised concerns among regional blocs about preserving jurisdictional gains built over decades. The new MoU positions the four authorities as coordinated partners rather than parallel regulators.
The authorities have already jointly reviewed draft competition regulations developed by the AfCFTA Secretariat and institutionalised annual meetings to share enforcement updates and consumer protection strategies.
For policymakers and investors, the message is clear: regulatory fragmentation is being addressed before it becomes a drag on intra-African trade.
Market scale
The cooperation spans some of Africa’s most dynamic economic corridors. The East African Community, whose members include Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania, represents a market of more than 331 million people as of 2023. With recent admissions, that figure is projected to approach 350–400 million by 2025. The bloc’s combined GDP stands at approximately US$312.9 billion, and total trade surged 21.9 percent to US$40.3 billion in the third quarter of 2025.
In West Africa, the Economic Community of West African States commands a population of roughly 468 million and a nominal GDP of about US$705 billion in 2025, with growth projected at 4.6 percent, buoyed by oil and gas expansion in Senegal and Niger. In purchasing power parity terms, the region’s economy is valued at US$3.4 trillion.
Meanwhile, UEMOA’s eight-member monetary union accounts for 145.3 million people and an estimated nominal GDP of US$219.78 billion in 2024, with GDP per capita at US$1,447.
Several countries hold overlapping memberships across the blocs, making regulatory coordination not just desirable but necessary.
Operational shift
The timing of the MoU coincides with stepped-up enforcement activity. COMESA enacted new competition and consumer protection regulations in December 2025. ECOWAS and the EAC have recently operationalised merger control regimes, widening scrutiny of cross-border transactions in banking, telecommunications, energy and fast-moving consumer goods.
EAC Acting Registrar Stellah Onyancha described the pact as the culmination of years of incremental trust-building. “This idea started on email and it has come to pass,” she said. “Our collaboration through this MoU will enhance case investigations and help us share experiences for markets and people to benefit.”
She emphasised that capacity building in research and information sharing would be critical to ensuring Africa’s integrated markets function effectively. “We are going to implement this document to the latter,” she added.
From UEMOA, Commissioner Filiga Michel Sawadogo framed the agreement in economic terms. “This MoU is the basis for building our solidarity,” he said. “We want it to be a practical document for the people of Africa,” linking competition enforcement directly to welfare and business climate improvement.
ECOWAS Regional Competition Authority Executive Director Simeon Koffi highlighted the commercial dimension. Effective consumer protection, he said, requires coordinated enforcement in a continent where many countries belong to more than one trading bloc. Transparency and regular communication, he added, will determine whether the MoU delivers measurable results.
Yahya Samteh, a competition expert at the ECOWAS authority, underscored that building effective markets “needs more than one competition authority,” pledging institutional support to ensure the agreement translates into joint investigations and aligned policy action.
Investor signal
Analysts view the pact as an important signal to investors navigating multi-jurisdictional African markets. A structured work plan under the MoU will cover joint investigations, shared expertise, staff exchanges and coordinated studies — particularly in emerging sectors such as digital markets.
By formalising cooperation, the four authorities are seeking to reduce duplicative reviews, harmonise enforcement standards and strengthen consumer welfare protections.
For Africa’s private sector, the agreement suggests that the continent’s regulatory institutions are moving in step with its integration ambitions. For policymakers, it reflects a maturing recognition that competition enforcement is not peripheral to development — but central to it.
As Mwemba put it, the signing was more than ink on paper. It was the consolidation of years of groundwork and the beginning of a more structured phase of continental regulatory cooperation.
