Fostering MSMEs digital trade in the AfCFTA context: does digital trade regulations matter?

Despite their positive role towards the development of Africa, MSMEs are still facing restrictive obstacles that are impeding their competitiveness and their ability to seize the opportunities offered by digital trade in the AfCFTA context. After analysing the state of provisions conducive to MSMEs in AfCFTA agreement and their importance, we use the Regional Digital Trade Integration Index (RDTII) recently compute by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) to investigate the digital trade regulations ecosystem. Globally, the results show that the digital trade regulatory ecosystem is not very favorable to MSMEs because of the divergence of national digital regulatory frameworks. Many African countries have not yet adopted the international instruments related to digital trade. The results also show that the main impediments to digital trade integration are related to regulations on: internet intermediary liability, domestic data policies, IPRs, content access, telecom and competition, and high effective tariffs applied on ICT goods imported within the African continent. In short, there is a need for harmonization of regulations and we suggest that the Protocol on digital trade under negotiations includes provision on MSMEs.