African heads of states and governments pose during African Union (AU) Summit for the agreement to establish the African Continental Free Trade Area in Kigali, Rwanda, on March 21, 2018.
Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris, France.
What you need to know:
AfCFTA's plan is to boost intra-African trade by 60 percent by 2034 by eliminating almost all tariffs, creating an economic bloc of 1.3 billion people with a combined gross domestic product of $3.4 trillion.
This year's summit comes at a "delicate moment" for Africa, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank, citing Ethiopia's nascent peace process, conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Sahel region, South Sudan and jihadist insurgencies in Somalia and Mozambique.
