- By Damilola Adeyera
As delegates, entrepreneurs, and performers converge on Addis Ababa and Wolaita Soddo for the East-West Africa Amalgamation running September 15 to 23, 2026, attention is turning to how the continent can deepen economic and cultural connections between its regions.
The event is being read by some as an early test of how the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could work in practice, particularly in sectors like tourism and the creative economy that the agreement has not traditionally been associated with.
AfCFTA, in force since 2021, lists tourism among the priority sectors under its Protocol on Trade in Services. But while implementation of goods trade has advanced, the services side has moved slowly. Analysts increasingly point to events like the East – West Amalgamation as examples of the cross-border activity the protocol was designed to support.
AfCFTA was created around a simple but ambitious idea: Africa can become stronger economically when Africans trade more with one another, move across borders more easily, and build businesses that serve a continental market rather than remain restricted to individual national economies.
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Trade does not happen through agreements alone. People must meet. Businesses must find one another. Ideas must travel. Culture must be exchanged. Tourists must move from one country to another. Young entrepreneurs must discover opportunities beyond the borders of their own countries.
However, mobility remains the challenge. For many attendees, the biggest obstacle was not policy but movement itself. Visa requirements, limited direct flights and high travel costs between African countries remain common complaints among businesspeople and tourism operators, a pattern well documented by African trade bodies.
Every traveller arriving from Lagos, Accra or Nairobi effectively tests the same corridors AfCFTA’s mobility provisions are meant to simplify.
The East-West Africa Amalgamation therefore offers more than a gathering of people from different parts of the continent. It provides a practical picture of what a more integrated African market could look like when trade is supported by movement, culture, tourism and human connection.
For AfCFTA to deliver its full promise, the conversation must move beyond agreements and declarations to the everyday realities of Africans trying to travel, trade, create and collaborate across borders. An entrepreneur should be able to meet a potential partner in another African country without prohibitive travel costs. A creative artist should be able to find audiences beyond their home market. A tourist should be able to discover another part of the continent without unnecessary barriers.
In that sense, the East-West Amalgamation is not separate from the AfCFTA project. It is part of the human activity that can give the agreement meaning.