Despite accounting for barely 3 % of global merchandise trade, Africa’s engagement with the multilateral trading system is
pivotal—both for the continent’s structural transformation and for the future legitimacy of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This
paper interrogates Africa’s evolving role from Marrakesh (1994) to the present, tracing how African coalitions shifted from defensive
postures on commodity preferences to proactive agenda-setting on services, digital trade and environmental goods. Blending legal-

textual analysis of WTO agreements with an original dataset of 2 700 African trade disputes and 48 in-depth interviews with
negotiators in Geneva, we identify three core findings. First, African countries have increased their bargaining leverage through
disciplined bloc formation—most notably via the African Group and the “African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) +” caucus—raising the
probability of favourable rulings by 27 %. Second, preference erosion and tightening rules of origin have diminished the net benefits
of unilateral preference schemes, prompting a re-orientation toward reciprocal South-South arrangements such as the AfCFTA and
the African Union’s G-20 accession strategy. Third, internal coordination costs remain high: intra-African divergences on tariff
bindings, cotton subsidies and fisheries subsidies delay consensus and expose negotiators to “divide-and-rule” tactics. The paper
concludes with a policy framework that aligns AfCFTA implementation with WTO reform proposals—anchored on plurilateral digital
trade disciplines, a development-oriented dispute settlement fund, and a continental green industrialisation waiver. By situating Africa
not as a peripheral rule-taker but as a norm-shaper, the study reframes the debate on how multilateralism can be re-engineered to
support 21st-century developmental imperatives.