Making Free Trade Auditable: The Audit Profession’s Role in Shaping AfCFTA’s Regulatory Framework

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) represents a landmark economic integration initiative, encompassing 54 African Union member states with the objective of fostering trade liberalisation, investment, and economic growth. However, unlike the European Union (EU), AfCFTA operates through an intergovernmental structure, relying on national-level implementation rather than a centralised enforcement mechanism. This fragmented regulatory landscape raises concerns about trade governance, financial oversight, and compliance, particularly given the overlapping mandates of regional economic communities (RECs) (African Union, 2025) and regulatory inconsistencies. While AfCFTA’s Protocol on Trade in Services recognises auditing as a market opportunity, its role as a regulatory mechanism for trade oversight remains underdeveloped. This paper examines how the auditing profession can proactively shape AfCFTA’s governance framework by drawing on insights from the EU, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The paper employs the concept of institutional work to analyse how auditors can influence AfCFTA’s trade governance through regulatory engagement, policy advocacy, and institutional legitimacy-building. Institutional work, particularly political work and boundary work is critical in contexts where regulatory authority is decentralised. In supranational frameworks such as the EU, auditors operate within structured regulatory institutions, engaging in direct policy advocacy and financial oversight. By contrast, intergovernmental trade agreements such as the WTO and ASEAN illustrate the challenges of integrating auditing into trade governance due to regulatory fragmentation and voluntary compliance mechanisms. AfCFTA, with its decentralised enforcement structure, necessitates a hybrid approach that combines regional advocacy with national-level lobbying to establish harmonised audit governance frameworks.
This study argues that auditors can contribute to AfCFTA’s regulatory development by leveraging institutional mechanisms such as policy discussions, trade dispute resolution processes, and financial oversight structures. Drawing from international case studies, the paper highlights how the EU’s centralised audit governance model ensures harmonised financial regulations, while the WTO’s trade agreements, particularly the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), have facilitated the expansion of transnational audit firms but weakened domestic regulatory control. ASEAN’s experience underscores the risks associated with regulatory fragmentation, demonstrating the need for stronger cross-border financial governance. Based on these insights, this paper proposes that AfCFTA should establish an African Trade Audit Committee to oversee financial compliance, enhance auditor participation in trade policymaking, and create standardised audit frameworks to strengthen transparency and accountability.
This study contributes to the limited body of research on auditing in trade agreements by demonstrating how the audit profession can serve as a key actor in AfCFTA’s governance framework. It provides a comparative analysis of different trade blocs, outlining how audit regulation can be embedded into trade agreements while accounting for the complexities of intergovernmental regulatory environments. By positioning auditors as institutional actors capable of influencing trade governance, this research offers practical recommendations for policymakers, audit professionals, and trade regulators. The findings emphasise that AfCFTA must adopt a proactive approach to audit governance, ensuring that financial oversight mechanisms are embedded within its trade facilitation and compliance processes to enhance transparency, trust, and economic integration across the continent.