Africa Resilience Forum 2025: Leaders Urge Investment in Modern Border Infrastructure to Unlock AfCFTA Potential
ABIDJAN, Côte d’Ivoire, October 5, 2025 — Development leaders at the sixth Africa Resilience Forum have called for urgent investment in high‑quality, digitised border infrastructure to boost trade and mobility across the continent.
Speaking during a panel on “Regional Integration and Trade as Pathways to Peace”, participants stressed that single, digitised border posts between neighbouring countries could transform cross‑border trade, reduce corruption, and accelerate the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
“The ideal is to have a single border post between countries. Strong infrastructure like that would help facilitate trade,” said Mohammed Abdiker, Chief of Staff at the International Organization for Migration (IOM). “We must all work together, advocating to our governments on the importance of the movement of goods and people for a more integrated management of our borders.”
The African Development Bank Group, which convenes the Forum, has already financed several One Stop Border Post projects, including the Tanzania–Kenya and Benin–Togo crossings, to simplify customs and speed up clearance. A new project between the Central African Republic and Cameroon is also underway.
Magdalene Dagoseh, Liberia’s Minister of Commerce and Industry, highlighted digitisation as key to transparency:
“By digitising border points, we can fight corruption. We know how many people have left or entered, and this prevents other problems.”
Ziad Hamoui, President of Borderless Alliance, urged policymakers to also address informal and illicit trade:
“Today, the volume of trade in the informal sector is higher than in the formal sector. If you don’t know what’s happening at the borders, you won’t know how to manage it.”
Launched in 2021, the AfCFTA has been ratified by 49 countries, creating a potential market of 1.3 billion people. Leaders at the Forum agreed that without modern border infrastructure, the promise of the AfCFTA will remain out of reach.
The Africa Resilience Forum, organised biennially by the African Development Bank Group, brings together policymakers and practitioners from the humanitarian‑development‑peace nexus to explore strategies for scaling up prevention efforts and stimulating peace‑building investments across the continent.
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