CLOSING THE GAP: Digital Trust and Women's Participation in AfCFTA-Enabled Trade

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Africa's landmark regional trade agreement, has the potential to expand intra-African trade and create new economic opportunities, including for women traders. However, achieving these gains requires more than reducing tariffs. Women traders continue to face persistent barriers to participation, including limited access to information, weak institutional support, and concerns about the safety and governance of digital trade systems. This policy brief draws on findings from a randomised survey experiment involving 586 women traders in Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria. The study examined whether providing information about the AfCFTA, with and without additional messaging on data governance and digital privacy, influenced women's trust in digital trade systems and willingness to engage in cross-border trade. The findings show that AfCFTA information increased women's confidence in digital trade systems but did not increase their willingness to trade. When information on data governance and digital privacy was added, both digital trust and willingness to trade declined. These findings suggest that awareness alone is insufficient to increase women's participation in AfCFTA-enabled trade. Strengthening data governance, building trust in digital trade infrastructure, and ensuring gender-responsive institutional protections are essential for inclusive AfCFTA implementation.

This brief was authored by:
Evans Osabuohien, Professor of Economics at Covenant University, Ota 
and Thelma Obiakor, Research Fellow at CSEA.