Ghana, Rwanda, and the next wave: Where UAE-Africa CEPAs are headed in 2026 and beyond

By Seade CAESAR

The United Arab Emirates has quietly but decisively positioned itself as one of Africa’s most consequential economic partners. Through its Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement program, the UAE is reshaping how trade, investment, and mobility between the Gulf and Africa are structured. What began as a diversification strategy away from oil has evolved into a sophisticated form of economic diplomacy, anchored in bilateral agreements that go far beyond tariff reduction.

As 2026 unfolds, attention is shifting to the next wave of African partners. Among the most discussed are Ghana and Rwanda. Both countries occupy strategic positions within Africa’s political economy, and both align closely with the UAE’s long-term objectives in logistics, services, finance, and regional market access. This examines why these countries matter, what the UAE is seeking, and what African policymakers should be prioritizing as CEPA talks deepen.

The UAE’s CEPA Strategy in Africa: A Brief Context

CEPAs are not traditional free trade agreements. While they include tariff liberalization, their real value lies in services trade, investment protection, business mobility, and regulatory cooperation. For the UAE, CEPAs serve three interconnected goals.

Expanding Non-Oil Trade and Securing Supply Chains

The UAE uses CEPAs to diversify away from hydrocarbons by guaranteeing steady access to food, raw materials, and intermediate goods. African partners help reduce supply vulnerabilities, stabilize imports, and support the UAE’s long-term food security and manufacturing ambitions.

Enabling UAE Investment and Services Expansion

CEPAs lower regulatory barriers for UAE firms in logistics, finance, construction, aviation, and digital services. They provide legal certainty for capital deployment, ease establishment rules, and support the international growth of Emirati companies across high-potential African markets.

Strengthening Geoeconomic Influence and Global Positioning

Beyond commerce, CEPAs function as instruments of economic diplomacy. They position the UAE as a reliable, non-aligned partner, enhance its influence in emerging markets, and reinforce its role as a global trade hub linking Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Africa fits this strategy well. Its demographic growth, urbanization, and continental market integration offer scale, while its infrastructure and financing gaps create space for Gulf capital and expertise. The UAE’s approach has therefore been selective rather than continental, focusing on countries that act as gateways to wider regions.

Why Ghana Is Central to the Next CEPA Wave

Ghana stands out in West Africa for reasons that extend beyond trade volumes. It offers political stability, regulatory predictability, and a strategic position within ECOWAS. For the UAE, a CEPA with Ghana would be less about bilateral trade alone and more about regional reach.

From the UAE’s perspective, Ghana provides an entry point into a 400-million-person regional market. Logistics corridors through Tema Port, air connectivity via Accra, and Ghana’s role in regional services make it a natural hub. A CEPA would likely prioritize logistics, aviation services, financial services, construction, and agribusiness value chains.

For Ghana, the upside is access to long-term capital, technology transfer, and preferential entry into a high-income consumer market. Ghanaian exporters of processed foods, cocoa-based products, pharmaceuticals, and light manufactures stand to gain if rules of origin are carefully designed. Equally important are services provisions that enable Ghanaian professionals, fintech firms, and logistics operators to operate in the UAE under clearer and more predictable conditions.

However, risks remain. Without strong domestic industrial policy, Ghana could see trade skewed toward imports while value-added exports lag. A CEPA must therefore be aligned with Ghana’s industrialization and export diversification agenda rather than treated as a standalone trade deal.

Rwanda and the East African Model

Rwanda represents a different but equally compelling case. Its economic strategy is not based on scale but on efficiency, governance, and positioning as a regional services hub. For the UAE, Rwanda offers a platform for East and Central Africa, particularly in logistics, aviation, digital services, and tourism.

Rwanda’s regulatory environment, ease of doing business, and investment facilitation mechanisms align closely with the UAE’s preference for fast execution. A CEPA here would likely move quickly into implementation, focusing on services trade, investment protection, and mobility of skilled professionals.

For Rwanda, a CEPA with the UAE strengthens its ambition to become a regional headquarters location for multinational firms. Improved access to Gulf capital, airline connectivity, and logistics networks can reinforce Kigali’s role as a business gateway. The challenge will be ensuring that domestic firms and workers are integrated into these opportunities rather than displaced by larger external players.

CEPAs and AfCFTA: Strategic Alignment or Fragmentation?

A recurring concern across Africa is whether bilateral CEPAs undermine the African Continental Free Trade Area. The answer depends on design and sequencing. Poorly aligned CEPAs risk creating fragmented trade regimes and regulatory arbitrage. Well-designed ones can act as accelerators.

If Ghana or Rwanda negotiates CEPAs that reinforce AfCFTA-compatible rules of origin, regional value chains can benefit. UAE investment in manufacturing, logistics, and processing can then serve not just the UAE market but continental trade as well. The danger lies in treating CEPAs as shortcuts rather than complements to African integration.

African negotiators must therefore insist on coherence. This includes aligning tariff schedules, safeguarding policy space for industrial development, and ensuring that services liberalization does not outpace domestic regulatory capacity.

What the UAE Is Really Seeking

Understanding the UAE’s motivations is essential for effective negotiation. The UAE is not primarily seeking access to African consumer markets for finished goods. Instead, it is focused on three deeper objectives.

Control and Efficiency of Trade Corridors

The UAE prioritizes securing and optimizing ports, airports, shipping lanes, and logistics hubs that link Africa to global markets. By investing in corridor infrastructure, the UAE reduces supply-chain risk, shortens delivery times, and positions itself as an indispensable transit and re-export gateway for African trade.

Services Leadership in Strategic Sectors

Rather than competing on manufactured goods, the UAE seeks dominance in high-value services such as finance, logistics, construction, aviation, and digital platforms. CEPAs open regulatory space for Emirati firms to operate, scale, and embed themselves deeply within African economies.

Long-Term Investment in Strategic Assets

The UAE targets assets tied to food security, energy transition, minerals, and industrial inputs. Through CEPAs, it secures predictable investment conditions, aligns projects with sovereign wealth strategies, and ensures stable access to resources critical for long-term economic resilience.

Ghana and Rwanda fit neatly into this framework. They offer stability, regional reach, and policy environments conducive to rapid deal execution. African negotiators should recognize this leverage and use it strategically.

Policy Priorities for African Governments

For Ghana, Rwanda, and other potential CEPA partners, three priorities should guide negotiations.

Rules of Origin That Promote Local Value Addition

Rules of origin will largely determine whether CEPAs drive real industrial development or merely facilitate re-exports. Ghana, Rwanda, and other African partners should negotiate origin thresholds that encourage local processing, assembly, and manufacturing, rather than simple transshipment. Flexible but development-oriented rules can help domestic firms integrate into regional and global value chains while still benefiting from preferential access to the UAE market. Priority should be given to sectors where Africa has upgrading potential, such as agro-processing, pharmaceuticals, textiles, and light manufacturing. Clear certification procedures and support for SMEs are essential to ensure firms can actually use CEPA preferences.

Sequenced and Reciprocal Services Liberalization

Services chapters are often the most impactful elements of CEPAs, covering finance, logistics, construction, ICT, and professional services. African governments must ensure liberalization is sequenced, opening markets gradually in line with domestic regulatory capacity. Reciprocity matters: access for UAE firms should be matched by meaningful opportunities for African service providers in the UAE, including professional mobility and recognition of qualifications. Safeguards should protect critical public interest areas while enabling competition and innovation. Without careful sequencing, domestic firms’ risk being crowded out before they are competitive, undermining long-term service sector development.

Investment Commitments That Go Beyond Protection

Investment chapters should move beyond standard protections and dispute settlement to include development-linked commitments. Ghana, Rwanda, and similar economies should negotiate provisions that encourage local participation, skills transfer, and supplier development. This may include incentives for joint ventures, requirements for local content where feasible, and structured training programs tied to major investments. Transparency and policy space are also crucial, allowing governments to pursue industrial and social objectives. When aligned with national development plans, investment provisions can transform CEPAs from access agreements into engines for sustainable growth and capacity building.

Equally important is implementation capacity. CEPAs only deliver benefits if customs authorities, regulators, and businesses understand and use them. This requires sustained institutional investment rather than celebratory signing ceremonies.

Looking Ahead: 2026 and Beyond

The next phase of UAE-Africa CEPAs will likely deepen rather than widen. Instead of dozens of agreements, the UAE appears focused on strategic partnerships that anchor regional influence. Ghana and Rwanda exemplify this approach, serving as gateways rather than endpoints.

For Africa, the opportunity is significant but conditional. CEPAs can unlock capital, markets, and expertise, but only if they are embedded within broader development strategies. Otherwise, they risk reinforcing dependency rather than transformation.

As 2026 progresses, the real test will not be how many agreements are signed, but how well they are implemented, aligned, and leveraged. The UAE has made its intentions clear. The question now is whether African policymakers will negotiate from a position of strategy rather than urgency.

 

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