Conditional Integration: Realising AfCFTA Economic Benefits in Zimbabwe: Political Economy Enablers, Constraints and Developmental Prospects

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) expands Zimbabwe’s market opportunities, but access does not automatically translate into effective use. This article examines the domestic and regional factors that shape Zimbabwean firms’ ability to convert AfCFTA benefits into higher production, exports, investment, employment, and overall welfare. It draws on a larger mixed-methods study that includes a survey of 62 large firms and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) conducted from May to October 2024, stakeholder interviews, document analysis, and quantitative and thematic analysis using SPSS and NVivo. Using the Byiers et al. framework, the study links structural conditions, institutions, actors, incentives, and implementation capacity. Findings reveal that key challenges include currency instability, expensive and unreliable energy, layered taxes, limited access to finance, infrastructure gaps, and weak production linkages. Institutional insights indicate that firms prioritise the Protocol on Trade in Goods and border efficiency over the wider AfCFTA architecture, reflecting an operational focus on borders, customs, non-tariff barriers, and rules of origin rather than deeper integration in services, investment, intellectual property, competition, and dispute settlement. Access disparities are evident, with established firms having more financial, informational, and administrative resources than SMEs and less influential players. Despite optimistic stakeholder outlooks on market access, export growth, and investment, economic constraints and regulatory delays significantly hinder firms’ ability to leverage tariff preferences. The article argues that Zimbabwe’s AfCFTA gains are conditional rather than automatic. Formal participation must be translated into productive capacity, macroeconomic stability, domestication of the law, infrastructure, institutional coordination, trade finance, and inclusive firm-level utilisation. The study concludes that Zimbabwe’s principal task is to convert legal access into productive uptake through macroeconomic credibility, industrial deepening, legal implementation, infrastructure, coordinated institutions, trade finance, and broader firm participation.