Africa’s continental strategy on geographical indications (GIs) is moving from legal transplantation to institutional experimentation.
Drawing on policy documents, registers and the first wave of African case studies (Argane, Rooibos, Café Ziama-Macenta, Cabrito
de Tete), this paper maps the emerging GI landscape and evaluates its developmental impact. We show that the Tripartite
Regime—TRIPS (1995), OAPI (Bangui 1999) and ARIPO (Lusaka 1976, Swakopmund 2015)—has created overlapping, yet
incomplete, protection spaces: 190 African GIs were registered by 2021, but only one-quarter operate under fully enforceable sui
generis systems, and fewer than 15 % are supported by independent control structures or financially viable producer organisations.
Using a combination of approaches (legal-dogmatic analysis of 42 national statutes, econometric estimation of price premia for 8 pilot
products, and 63 semi-structured stakeholder interviews in Morocco, Kenya and South Africa), we find that GI registration alone
raises farm-gate prices by 8–18 %, yet only where collective governance and third-party certification are present does the premium
reach 30 % and translate into measurable rural income growth. The paper identifies three critical bottlenecks: (i) asymmetric legal
coverage favouring wines and spirits, (ii) weak post-registration governance, and (iii) absence of mutual-recognition rules under the
nascent AfCFTA IP Protocol. We propose a phased integration model: Phase I (2024-2027) consolidates national sui generis laws
and establishes an African GI Observatory for data pooling; Phase II (2027-2031) deploys regionally-harmonised control manuals
and an AfCFTA GI register; Phase III (post-2031) negotiates reciprocal GI-plus protection with the EU and UK to secure export
market access. The findings demonstrate that Africa can convert its wealth of origin-linked products into sustainable competitive
advantages, but only if GI policy is re-centred on collective action, transparent certification and continental market integration rather
than on isolated legal formalism.