AfCFTA Trade Compliance Advisor — Rules of Origin & Tariff Navigation

Requirement

The AfCFTA agreement lowers tariffs across 54 signatory states, but the preference is not automatic: a consignment only qualifies if the exporter can prove the goods meet the agreement's Rules of Origin and can produce a valid Certificate of Origin at the destination customs post. Most African SMEs cannot. They ship at Most Favoured Nation rates they were entitled to avoid, and the tariff saving that AfCFTA was designed to deliver never reaches them. The AfCFTA Secretariat preferred partner network is engaging trade compliance advisors to close that gap for SME exporters. The work is practical rather than theoretical: assessing whether a given product line meets the wholly-obtained, substantial-transformation or change-in-tariff-heading tests; assembling the supporting bill of materials and supplier declarations; preparing and lodging Certificate of Origin applications; and handling customs queries when a consignment is challenged at the border. Advisors work across ECOWAS and EAC customs regimes, which differ materially in documentation practice even where the underlying AfCFTA rule is identical. Engagements are scoped per client, typically $8,000 for a single product-line origin assessment through $25,000 for a full export compliance programme covering multiple lines and destination markets. Advisors are engaged on a rolling basis as SME demand is routed through the partner network, so this is a retained panel position rather than a single fixed-term mandate.