When trade ministers gather in Yaoundé, Cameroon, for the World Trade Organization’s 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14) at the end of March 2026, they will confront more than procedural reform. They will debate the future of the multilateral trading system at a time when industrial policy has returned as a defining feature of global growth.

Today, industrial policy is no longer exceptional. Across advanced and emerging economies, governments are deploying subsidies, domestic content requirements, public procurement strategies, and regulatory standards to steer investment towards priority sectors such as clean energy, advanced manufacturing, e-mobility, and the digital economy.

The current multilateral trading system was designed for a different era. As industrial strategies become more visible and deliberate, tensions with the multilateral trade system are intensifying. Subsidy disciplines are increasingly contested. Negotiations have slowed, and the WTO’s dispute settlement system remains partially paralysed, weakening the enforcement of agreed rules.

Large economies can absorb this uncertainty through scale and leverage, while for smaller economies, many of them in Africa, the stakes are higher. A predictable rules-based system is beneficial as it lowers transaction costs, secures market access, and provides remedies when commitments are breached. When enforcement weakens, asymmetries widen, and power begins to substitute for law.

African countries comprise more than a quarter of WTO membership. Yet many face structural constraints in complex trade negotiations, from technical capacity gaps to limited participation in informal decision-making processes. Their integration into global value chains remains concentrated in a narrow range of commodities and low-value-added exports. In an environment where industrial competition is intensifying, the erosion of multilateral discipline increases vulnerability to bilateral pressure. When rules weaken, smaller exporters face higher uncertainty, increased compliance costs, and diminished bargaining power.

The credibility of the multilateral trading system in this season will ultimately depend on its ability to reconcile the resurgence of industrial policy with the preservation of predictable and enforceable trade discipline. This reform must rest on four priorities.

First, reform debates must move beyond abstract institutional design and conform to the political economy realities shaping today’s trade landscape. The challenge is not to reverse the return of industrial policy, but to ensure that its resurgence does not undermine the collective disciplines that make multilateral trade viable. Reform must therefore begin with restoring credible dispute resolution. Without binding enforcement, compliance becomes selective and confidence erodes. A functioning appellate mechanism is not a procedural detail; it is the foundation of trust in global trade governance.

Second, subsidy discipline requires recalibration. Industrial policy is now a structural feature of global growth, and the objective should not be to eliminate state intervention altogether but rather to establish clearer guardrails that distinguish legitimate development-oriented policies from distortive practices that provoke retaliatory cycles and fragmentation. Recent years have witnessed hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidy packages across economies. While such measures may accelerate domestic transformation, they risk distorting competition and triggering defensive responses elsewhere. Without updated multilateral guardrails, subsidy races become self-reinforcing, eroding trust and fragmenting markets.

Third is transparency, as rules only operate when policy measures are visible, notified, and subject to scrutiny. Transparency and notification systems must be strengthened alongside technical and administrative support. Many developing countries face genuine constraints in meeting reporting obligations, from limited technical capabilities to overstretched trade ministries. Without parallel investment in compliance expertise, higher transparency standards risk widening the gap. Reform should enhance accountability without penalising those least equipped to comply.

Multilateral systemFinally, reform must acknowledge differences in fiscal space and institutional capability across member states. A multilateral system framework perceived as insensitive to development realities will struggle for legitimacy. At the same time, tolerating persistent non-compliance undermines credibility. Balancing policy space with discipline will define the next phase of trade governance. The alternative to managed reform is gradual fragmentation. As industrial competition intensifies, unstructured subsidy races and retaliatory measures would disproportionately harm economies with the least leverage.

For African economies, pursuing industrialisation under frameworks such as the African Continental Free Trade Area is not an abstract institutional debate. External global trade stability remains essential; as regional integration cannot fully compensate for fragmentation at the multilateral level.

Industrial policy reform need not signal the end of multilateralism. But it does demand adaptation. The choices made at MC14 and in the reform processes that follow will determine whether the trading system remains anchored in rules. For Africa and other smaller economies, that distinction is decisive. It will shape trade flows, the ability to industrialise, diversify, and compete over the coming decades.

The writer is an Eisenhower Fellow and the Managing Partner at Wakiaga and Company Advocates, with extensive experience in industrial policy, governance, international trade, investment, and private sector development.

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