The afep pigeon was described by the American ornithologist John Cassin in 1860 from a specimen collected in West Africa from the Ogooué River, Gabon.

[2] The specific epithet combines the Latin uni- "one-" and cinctus "banded".

[3] The English name "afep" is the word for a pigeon in the Bulu language of Cameroon.

[7] They are found in the African tropical rainforest, on either side of the Dahomey Gap.

Their population is stable and unfragmented, though the exact number of birds is unknown.