Second report on Assessing Regional Integration in Africa launched
Addis-Ababa, 07 July 2006 (ECA) -- The African Union (AU) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) launched their second joint report on regional integration in Africa during the African Union summit of heads of states in Banjul, The Gambia from 1 – 2 July.
The report, entitled Assessing Regional Integration in Africa II: Rationalizing Regional Economic Communities, or ARIA II, examines the effectiveness of Africa’s regional economic communities (RECs) in pushing forward the regional integration agenda towards the objectives of the Abuja Treaty establishing the African Economic Community. A fully functioning African Economic Community will remove all barriers to movement of people, goods and services across the continent, thereby creating a single economic space.
The report is based on detailed consultations with all the continent’s regional economic communities, several member States and other intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. It examines the critical role that institutions in general can play in achieving policy objectives, and the specific role that African institutions perform. The analysis focuses on the regional economic communities, which have been designated by the African Union as the building blocks for achieving the African Economic Community.
ARIA II finds that in general the regional economic communities have made commendable achievements. However, a substantial resource gap exists between the mandates of the RECs and their capacity to deliver, based on their financial and human resources. Furthermore, many RECs are pursuing similar mandates, and with countries belonging to numerous RECs, limited resources are spread thinly thereby limiting their effectiveness. There is therefore an urgent need to strengthen the capacity of the RECs and harmonize their programmes.
The report makes two main recommendations: The first is that the institutional setting needs to be rationalized in order to focus clearly on the objective at hand. It draws scenarios for rationalization and makes recommendations on how African countries, regional institutions and international organizations can participate in this exercise. The second recommendation is that the main institutions charged with accelerating regional integration in Africa need to be strengthened and given the technical, legal and financial resources necessary to fulfill this important objective. A copy of this report can be downloaded from www.uneca.org/aria2
Background
ARIA II is the second report in a series on regional integration in Africa. Its predecessor, ARIA I, provided the first comprehensive assessment of regional integration in Africa, analyzing all the sectoral and policy-issues. ARIA I found that the extent of integration was far below what should have been achieved given the amount of energy devoted to the issue. It recommended further analysis of the challenges facing Africa’s integration agenda. The next in the ARIA series, ARIA III will examine the issue of monetary convergence in Africa. A copy of ARIAI can be downloaded from www.uneca.org/aria
ARIA
II List of contacts If you would like to schedule an interview on ARIA II, you
can contact either one of the following people: |
|
|
1. Hakim Ben Hammouda Director |
2. Joseph Atta-Mensah Senior Economic Affairs Officer |
|
3. Mahamat Abdoulahi Economic Affairs Officer |
4. Andrew Allimadi Communication Officer |