The AfCFTA’s silence on telecoms – Outlook on Mobile Roaming in Africa

The AfCFTA draft policy is a set of documents that aim to establish a single market for goods and services in Africa and promote trade, investment, competition, and intellectual property rights among the member states of the African Union. The draft policy consists of four protocols: the Protocol on Trade in Goods, the Protocol on Trade in Services, the Protocol on Competition Policy, and the Protocol on Investment. What is interesting about the protocols within the AfCFTA is that none zeros in on any sort of communication, which seems like an integral part of trade.

The existing structure of regional roaming

At present, roaming on the continent is quite disjointed and fragmented. There are nations with bilateral agreements, groups of nations within the same trade bloc that have set up their cross-border communication agreements, and service providers operating in multiple markets that have roaming policies in place for their subscribers.

Southern African Development Community (SADC) Policy on roaming

In 2015, the SADC roaming policy was approved which was a policy document aimed at harmonizing roaming service charges and their associated taxes across all SADC member states. Some of the notable measures are as follows:

• to address the high charges on roaming services within the Region
• to harmonize the costing and pricing of roaming services within the Region
• to develop a roaming cost model for determining cost of roaming within the Region
• to provide minimum safeguards for consumers of roaming services, to empower them to make informed decisions.

Source: SADC Roaming Policy