Regional Trade
From Import Dependence to Regional Self-Sufficiency
Regional trade is the most underused lever Africa has for feeding itself, and for reclaiming the billions it spends importing what the continent already grows.
Baobab Impact mapped the agro-commodity trade flows that connect Africa's producing regions to one another and to global markets, looking at where the continent's food, feed, and cash crops actually move, what they cost to move, and how much of the value generated stays on the continent. Two questions sat at the heart of the work. Why is so much of Africa's food demand still met by imports despite the continent's own productive capacity, and how much of that demand could realistically be redirected to intra-African trade? Across the priority corridors covered by the analysis, Baobab Impact identified the regulatory, infrastructure, and non-tariff barriers suppressing cross-border flows, quantified the import substitution potential that strengthened regional trade could deliver, and set out the policy and investment interventions required to unlock it.
The resulting analysis gives governments, Regional Economic Communities, and private sector actors a clearer view of which trade corridors to prioritize, where to redirect the billions Africa currently spends on food imports, and how regional trade can become a working engine of agri-food self-sufficiency rather than a long-standing aspiration.
Our Work
Working for agricultural system transformation
in Africa.
NAVIGATE
Who we are
Services
Initiatives
© 2026 Baobab Impact
Nairobi, Kenya
Regional Trade
From Import Dependence to Regional Self-Sufficiency
Regional trade is the most underused lever Africa has for feeding itself, and for reclaiming the billions it spends importing what the continent already grows.
Baobab Impact mapped the agro-commodity trade flows that connect Africa's producing regions to one another and to global markets, looking at where the continent's food, feed, and cash crops actually move, what they cost to move, and how much of the value generated stays on the continent. Two questions sat at the heart of the work. Why is so much of Africa's food demand still met by imports despite the continent's own productive capacity, and how much of that demand could realistically be redirected to intra-African trade? Across the priority corridors covered by the analysis, Baobab Impact identified the regulatory, infrastructure, and non-tariff barriers suppressing cross-border flows, quantified the import substitution potential that strengthened regional trade could deliver, and set out the policy and investment interventions required to unlock it.
The resulting analysis gives governments, Regional Economic Communities, and private sector actors a clearer view of which trade corridors to prioritize, where to redirect the billions Africa currently spends on food imports, and how regional trade can become a working engine of agri-food self-sufficiency rather than a long-standing aspiration.
Our Work
Working for agricultural system transformation
in Africa.
NAVIGATE
Who we are
Services
Initiatives
© 2026 Baobab Impact
Nairobi, Kenya
Regional Trade
From Import Dependence to Regional Self-Sufficiency
Regional trade is the most underused lever Africa has for feeding itself, and for reclaiming the billions it spends importing what the continent already grows.
Baobab Impact mapped the agro-commodity trade flows that connect Africa's producing regions to one another and to global markets, looking at where the continent's food, feed, and cash crops actually move, what they cost to move, and how much of the value generated stays on the continent. Two questions sat at the heart of the work. Why is so much of Africa's food demand still met by imports despite the continent's own productive capacity, and how much of that demand could realistically be redirected to intra-African trade? Across the priority corridors covered by the analysis, Baobab Impact identified the regulatory, infrastructure, and non-tariff barriers suppressing cross-border flows, quantified the import substitution potential that strengthened regional trade could deliver, and set out the policy and investment interventions required to unlock it.
The resulting analysis gives governments, Regional Economic Communities, and private sector actors a clearer view of which trade corridors to prioritize, where to redirect the billions Africa currently spends on food imports, and how regional trade can become a working engine of agri-food self-sufficiency rather than a long-standing aspiration.
Our Work
Working for agricultural system transformation
in Africa.
NAVIGATE
Who we are
Services
Initiatives
© 2026 Baobab Impact
Nairobi, Kenya