Moonshot Trade Roundtable:Redefining the Long Game of Digital Trade in Africa

​Africa has spent years building the policy architecture for a continental digital market. The AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol, adopted in 2024, provides a framework for issues including cross-border digital payments, digital identity, data flows, consumer protection, and the wider digital trade ecosystem. Yet the defining test for 2026 is no longer whether the protocols exist—it is whether they work in the commercial lives of African businesses.

​For a startup expanding from Lagos to Nairobi, a manufacturer paying regional suppliers, a creative agency invoicing global clients, or a professional services firm hiring across borders, “digital trade” is experienced through practical questions such as: Can they receive money quickly and transparently? Can they pay suppliers and teams across markets? Can they manage multiple currencies and FX volatility? Can they comply without being locked out of the financial system? And can they build an export business without losing margin, time and trust at every border?

​From Protocols to Payouts: Redefining the Long Game of Digital Trade in Africa convenes trade ministers, digital-economy leaders, central banks and regulators, payment-infrastructure builders, and business operators to examine the missing middle between continental commitments and commercial outcomes. The session will move beyond announcements to explore the systems, partnerships and policy choices needed to make Africa’s digital trade agenda tangible: products sold, payments settled, jobs created and value retained on the continent.