In February 2026, the African Union (AU) Assembly instructed the Council of Ministers of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to negotiate a Protocol on Industrial Policy and Development. 

To provide independent inputs to help make that process and the ultimate protocol as inclusive and useful as possible, under the AfRI Practice Hub, we published the paper ‘Things to agree before negotiating an AfCFTA industrial protocol’. 

This webinar, held during Africa Industrialisation Week, will present and discuss the proposals in that paper, seeking responses and ideas from different stakeholders, including from the private sector and beyond. 

Key questions addressed will be:

• What are the lessons to draw from existing regional and continental industrialisation strategies?
• What specific issues might a continental protocol on industrial policy help address for different actors operating at the national level and within existing regional frameworks? 
• What should be the top priorities for negotiating the protocol?