28 January 2009: The RECs as Building Blocks Towards an Effective Continental Integration

The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Mr Jean Ping recently again emphasized the need for economic entities – both big and small - to develop joint strategies that can help effectively overcome Africa’s political and economic challenges. He was speaking at the opening ceremony of the 35th Summit of the Heads of States and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) that took place on 19 December 2008, in Abuja, Nigeria.

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The importance of Regional Economic Communities (RECs) has been a theme of Africa’s search for collective development strategies and integration schemes – from the creation of the Organization of African Unity, through to the African Union (AU). Some of these plans are well documented in the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA) as well as in the Final Act of Lagos (FAL) 1980 – 2000 and the Abuja Treaty establishing an African Economic Community (AEC) 1991. Both the FAL and the Abuja Treaty specifically stressed the role of REC’s in the establishment of the AEC in six stages over a period of 30 years, from the entry into force on the Treaty.

However, the above proclamations notwithstanding, since becoming politically independent, African countries have made efforts to individually address the economic and social challenges they all face with limited success. In spite of recent evidence of improved economic performance such as income growth since the mid-1990s which helped to sustain the improvement in human development indicators across most of Africa, the continent still tragically lags behind those of other regions of the world.

Overall, the continent’s poor pace of socio-economic recovery despite a plethora of international assistance partly arose from: the excessive fragmentation of the continent in terms of political and economic units, the heavy dependence of the African economies on few primary export commodities, weak institutional capacities to support and sustain the development process from within, the unfavorable international environment and the deteriorating terms of trade, the burden of debt serving and the stagnating flow of external resources.

In order to reverse the above negative trends and improve developmental performance, African leaders are increasingly convinced that they must act collectively. They agreed to speed up the economic and political integration of the continent to pursue the goal of a United States of Africa. In general, regional integration refers to the unification of neighboring states working within a negotiated framework to promote free movement of peoples, goods, services and other factors of production; and also develop, coordinate and harmonize policy and institutional frameworks to operationalize their vision.

However, integration is a complex process. Partly due to the added elements infused by globalization: today no country can unilaterally - irrespective of her power and strength - successfully address and counter the multiple and new cross cutting challenges that transcend African boundaries. Additionally, it is also clear that ad hoc and regional solutions cannot solve the complex security, economic, financial and general good governance needs of Africa. Hence, the need for the continent to speed up the process of regional integration with the view of establishing a stronger economic unity with greater impact that is now the main objective of the AU.

In his speech in Abuja Mr. Ping also stated that the creation of RECs was in response to the need for opening African markets to broader trade opportunities, thereby enhancing the integration of the continent in the process. Moreover, Mr Ping outlined the need to constitute a forum for African communities to consider the political and economic growth at long and short term, with the view of creating a sub-regional market open to all and where a common currency is used. Additionally, the implementation of the community projects as well as its effective functioning in connection with the free movement of persons and goods, the regional policies on sectors such as infrastructure (transport and energy) as well as conflict management and the maintenance of peace in the sub region were also recognized by the AU.

Currently there are multiple regional blocs in Africa, many of which have overlapping memberships. The RECs consist primarily of trade blocs and, in some cases, political and military cooperation. As mentioned earlier, these RECs are intended to be the building blocks for economic integration in Africa and the AU currently recognizes eight of them as follows:

The Arab Maghreb Union (AMU);
The Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD);
The East African Community (EAC);
The Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS);
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS);
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA);
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD); and
The Southern African Development Cooperation (SADC).

All the above eight RECs have economic integration as their end goal, with only the East African Community (EAC) additionally aspiring for a political integration under a federation.

The AU as currently constituted will necessarily have to do more to assist the RECs to achieve this goal. However, initiatives are not referenced to the AU and there is no roadmap with respect to the AU within any of the RECs. The result is that many of the RECs have duplicated the AU’s institutions and mechanisms and tend to engage more with the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) on common programmes and projects under the NEPAD plans of action. Although this could be beneficial in the medium to long term, it can only be so if the missing roadmaps to the AU are developed as a matter of urgency. What are needed are intensified efforts at harmonization and rationalization of the RECs.

In conclusion, the challenges facing the continent as a whole requires attention if the RECs are to succeed in their mission as building blocks towards continental integration. Almost all RECs are inward-looking and consider their objective (economic union or political federation) at regional level as their ultimate goal. There is no roadmap at the level of the RECs for their eventual integration into a continental union; there are duplications of some AU organs at the level of RECs, notably the parliament, development/investment bank, and the ECOSOC. More importantly, in some RECs there seems to be contradictory views with regards to the aspirations for a continental agenda. Therefore, there is need for the AU to take the lead in the promotion of the integration agenda at the continental level. Some sort of a dialogue and an engagement formula between AU and RECs is imperative.

In addition, African countries, individually and collectively, should aim at achieving the economic reforms necessary for sustainable growth and development, promoting sub- regional and regional cooperation and integration; intensifying the internal nation-building and democratization process and giving due consideration to key elements such as the human dimension, population, environment, energy, water, agriculture, and food security. Moreover, the international community could help the integration processes by addressing the crippling debt problem, the unfavorable international trade environment, the provision of financial and technical assistance to support African-driven program priorities and marshal sufficient political will to support African efforts towards economic diversification and integration.

Dr Debay Tadesse, Senior Researcher, Conflict Prevention Programme, ISS Addis Ababa