Building Africa’s Exports Through Quality
A continental forum on the standards, systems and trust that decide what Africa can sell to the world, convened in Addis Ababa by TradeMark Africa and the Government of Ethiopia.
Government of Ethiopia, through the Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration and the Ministry of Transport and Logistics.
TradeMark Africa, one of the continent’s largest aid-for-trade organisations.
Building Africa’s Exports Through Quality.
Two days of dialogue and decisions, with 250 to 300 senior participants.
Three countries proved it can be done. ATDF 2026 makes it the norm.
Building Africa's Exports Through Quality.
In December 2025, a consignment of Apple mangoes from Makueni County was loaded at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and shipped to the United Kingdom; the first Kenyan mangoes to enter that market since 2014, when Kenya self banned exports to avoid sanctions due to fruit fly interceptions. The volume was modest, yet historic and economically significant, as it marked the restoration of access to a premium market that had been closed to Kenyan growers.
Behind the shipment lies a story about quality; of standards through credible phytosanitary controls, traceability, certification and food-safety assurance.
As of 2025, Apple mangoes accounted for more than 80% of Kenya's mango production, the product of decades of work on varietal improvement, orchard management and post-harvest handling. Yet, none of that mattered to a UK buyer until Kenya could prove, on paper and in laboratory results, that the fruit met UK phytosanitary and food-safety requirements including pest control, traceability and the lot. Reaching that proof took ten years of coordinated investment in compliance infrastructure, delivered in part through partnerships with the Government of Kenya, TradeMark Africa (TMA), the Fresh Produce Exporters Association of Kenya, the Fresh Produce Consortium of Kenya and CABI International.
Kenya’s Mangoes are not an isolated case.
A continental story, with Ethiopia at its centre.
In late 2024, the European Union's Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (EU-DG SANTE) put Eastern Africa's flower industry under one of the most demanding plant-health audits the sector has faced. The threat was the False Codling Moth, whose larva conceals itself inside a rose bud or capsicum. The EU treats it as a zero-tolerance quarantine pest, such that a single live larva is enough to reject an entire consignment, and inspection rates on high-risk imports had risen from 5% to around 25%.
The numbers explain the alarm. Kenya's cut flower export earnings slipped from about $567 million in 2023 to roughly $556 million in 2024, a decline the 2025 Economic Survey attributes partly to rising FCM rejections. Flowers remain the country's most valuable horticultural export, with the Kenya Flower Council putting them at over half of horticulture earnings; and behind the figures sit hundreds of thousands of livelihoods, from farm workers and supervisors to packhouses, freight handlers and input suppliers.
Ethiopia had as much at stake. Floriculture is its second-largest agricultural export, worth some $400 million a year and employing over 200,000 people, and FCM interceptions had already drawn EU warnings. For both countries, failing the audits would have meant suspension from the market that buys most of their flowers.
Passing required a combination of well-run farms and showcasing a national system an external auditor could test and trust, including registered production sites, greenhouse integrity checks, surveillance regimes, pack-house quality control, and end-to-end digital traceability. With funding from the EU and the Mastercard Foundation, TMA worked with Kenya, Ethiopia and Rwanda to build such systems.
At the end of 2025, Kenya and Ethiopia passed the EU-DG SANTE audits, preserving EU access for a combined flower trade worth close to $1 billion a year and the hundreds of thousands of livelihoods behind it. Rwanda is now strengthening its SPS architecture for the next round of audits.
Such success demonstrates that African exporters, with the right systems behind them, can clear the highest bars in global trade. But three countries and one round of audits cannot carry a continent.
Turning isolated breakthroughs into a continental norm is the purpose of ATDF 2026.
Building Africa's Exports Through Quality.
Standards are how the world agrees that products are safe. For Africa, the stakes are high.
People in the market the AfCFTA opens. Its value is unlocked only if a product certified in one country is accepted in another.
Africa exports in goods to the EU market in 2024. About 30% of EU food safety rejections involve African goods.
Of Africa’s businesses are SMEs, employing most of its women and young people, yet fewer than one in five trade across borders.
SMEs that trade across borders today. The cost and complexity of certification is a leading reason why.
What is already changing.
An independent evaluation completed in early 2025 by AENOR Conocimiento examined TradeMark Africa’s standards and SPS work across six countries. Where governments, regional bodies, businesses and development partners worked together, quality systems improved and trade followed.
Less time for conformity assessment. Firms that once waited seven months for certification now wait four.
Lower certification costs across the portfolio, with the largest gains in Rwanda (65%) and Uganda (45%).
Of surveyed firms increased sales after meeting the new standards. Employment at those firms grew by an average of 24%.
Adoption of harmonised East African Community standards from 2018 to 2022, covering trade estimated at 8 to 12 billion dollars a year.
What ATDF 2026 sets out to do.
ATDF has a record of turning dialogue into delivery. At ATDF 2024 in Rwanda, participating states endorsed the No Stop Border commitment to dismantle barriers at Africa's land crossings. Less than two years later, that endorsement has moved to funding commitments and the scoping of pilots on selected corridors. ATDF 2026 is designed to do the same for standards and quality infrastructure.
Make quality a priority
Elevate standards, SPS systems and quality infrastructure as political and investment priorities for Africa.
Connect evidence to decisions
Link evidence from firms, regulators and regional programmes to the choices facing governments, donors and the private sector.
Examine the reforms
Reduce repeated testing, shorten certification timelines, strengthen laboratories, digitise trade documentation and support mutual recognition.
Launch the evidence base
Publish a public evidence base on standards as strategic infrastructure for African trade, including the flagship report Trust is Trade: Standards as Strategic Infrastructure.
The people who can act.
About TradeMark Africa.
TMA is a leading African Aid-for-Trade organisation, founded in 2010, with a mission to grow intra-African trade, increase Africa’s share in global trade and make trade more pro-poor and environmentally sustainable. Our focus on reducing the cost and time of trading across borders through enhanced trade policy, better trade infrastructure, standards that work for businesses, greater use of digital innovations and a focus on creating trade access for vulnerable groups, has contributed to substantially lower cargo transit times, improved border efficiency, and increased exports. TMA operates on a not-for-profit basis and is funded by 12 institutional and philanthropic development partners and works closely with regional and continental organisations, national Governments, the private sector and civil society organisations.
Visit: www.trademarkafrica.com
Join Africa's most influential trade conversation
ATDF 2026 is invite only. Request your accreditation to join Heads of Government, Ministers and industry leaders in Addis Ababa.
Join Us →