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| HISTORY AND
PROSPECTS FOR REGIONAL INTEGRATION IN AFRICA by Professor Adebayo Adedeji, CFR Introductory Remark I must commence this presentation with a note of appreciation to the distinguished Executive Secretary of ECA for not only inviting me to attend ADF III, whose theme is Defining Priorities for Regional Integration, but also for generously and graciously requesting me to make a comprehensive presentation on the History and Prospects for Regional Integration in Africa in twenty minutes! Having personally played a leading role in the processes that have led to the establishment of virtually all the major existing African regional integration arrangements (ARIA) -namely, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS, 1975), the Preferential Trade Are-a:" for Eastern and Southern Africa (PT A, 1981) which was subsequently transformed into COMESA, the Central African Economic Community (CAEC, 1983) and the African Economic Community (AEC, 1991), this is indeed a tall order. I also had a hand in the emergence of the Final Act of Lagos (FAL, 1980) and the Lagos Plan of Action (LP A, 1980) of which the one was an integral part of the other. Finally, I took part in all the processes that culminated in the signing of the African Economic Community Treaty of 1991. In addition, I participated very actively in the preparation for and was at the United Nations Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC, 1978) and the South- South Caracas Conference on Economic Cooperation among Developing Countries (ECDC, 1981). Indeed, I was painfully reminded of all my sins of omission and commission when in October 1998 I was invited to take part in a High-Level Substantive Panel Discussion on the impact of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action on TCDC and the Caracas Declaration on ECDC as part of the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Buenos Aires Plan by the General Assembly at its 53rd Session. Now I am being required by my own organization, ECA, to deal with the history and the prospects of regional integration -to look back as it were in order to look forward- all in 20 minutes! When I was asked in September 2001 to undertake a retrospective journey by ECOW AS during its twenty- six years of existence, I was allowed 45 -50 minutes! Let me confess, that I had committed myself to regionalism in Africa long before I came to ECA in 1975 and that the Commission had been in the forefront in the advocacy and search for regional integration long before my own personal and professional commitment. Indeed, the vision of reestablishing and strengthening Africa's regional structure and of evolving regional policy frameworks in all fields of human endeavor with a view to fostering regional political, economic and social development fuelled and sustained the persistence of the four independent African countries which were signatories of the United Nations Charter- Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia and South Africa -for the establishment of the ECA. It is therefore not surprising that when the ECOSOC adopted its Resolution 671 (XXV) on Apri129, 1958 to establish the Commission, the very first item on its terms of reference was the initiation and participation "in measures for facilitating concerted action for the economic development of Africa, including its social aspects, with a view to raising the level of economic activity and standards of living in Africa and for maintaining and strengthening the economic relations of countries and territories of Africa." At the time the ECA was born the number of independent African countries had risen to 10 -the 4 Charter members and the 6 countries that had become independent in the 1950s -Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan, Ghana and Guinea. Needless to add that the ECA rose to the challenge even if no effective breakthrough in regional integration can be claimed to have been achieved. At least, at the institutional development level, a solid foundation has been laid in the evolution and growth of regional integration in Africa. Fortunately, independent Africa came into existence during the age of regional integration. After World War II, the promotion of regional integration became a global phenomenon culminating in the establishment of the EEC in 1957, the Latin American Free Trade Association in 1960, the Central American Common Market in 1961, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967, the Carribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) in 1968 etc etc. All these developments strengthened ECA's determination to pursue vigorously the policy of promoting regionalism in socio-economic development in Africa. Indeed, the Commission examined at its second session (January 1960) the impact of the creation of the EEC on African external trade, intra-African trade as well as on industrialization in Africa (ECA Resolution 7(II) of January 1960). Trade relations between African and European countries have been described as a hub-and- spoke arrangement. The OECD countries constitute the hub while individual African countries are the spokes. The key feature of the hub-and-spoke arrangement is that trade between the hub and each spoke is naturally dominated by the former to the detriment of the latter, unless the spokes work in a concerted manner. It is also significant that at its following session ECA decided to divide Africa into four subregions and to establish subregional offices in North, West and Central Africa (Resolution 23(III) of February 15, 1961 and Resolution 64(IV) of March 3, 1962). These subregional offices would enable the Commission to deal effectively with the problems of each subregion and assist member states in promoting subregional integration. When most countries of Eastern and Southern Africa became independent, an office was also established for the subregion - thus bringing the number to four. It was these subregional offices that matured, in the late 1970s, into ECA multinational programming and operational centres (MULPOCs) with the addition of one for the Great Lakes countries. Almost twenty years later, they were renamed subregional development centres (SDCs). These MULPOCs were ECA's main instruments in the promotion, negotiation, creation and/or monitoring of subregional cooperation arrangements in the four subregions of Africa. Africa's five phases of integration process Five phases are discernible in the historical development of regional integration in Africa. They are
Cross-cutting all these phases was the realization of the imperative of creating an enabling infrastructural environment for regionalism through the regional programming and concerted action in the development of infrastructure. While time will not permit us to analyse and discuss seriatim these phases in detail, we cannot avoid highlighting some of the factors that make the different phases significant and how each in its different ways contributed to the progress or the lack thereof of the integration process in Africa. Supra national pan-Africanism has for long been the idealistic aspiration of the people of Africa and of Africans in the diaspora. This was one of the cumulative consequences of the long period of slavery to which Africa and its people were subjected from the 15th to the 19th century. The first Pan-African Congress was held in 1900 but the pan-African movement stretches back to the eighteenth century when pan-African consciousness began to germinate, especially in the diaspora. The 1945 Pan African Congress -the fifth in the series -held in Manchester, England was the first to be dominated by Africans and African issues, even if it was very much the creation of the diaspora leaders. However, as a large number of countries became independent in the 1960s, pan- Africanism was supplanted by sub-regionalism and nationalism. It also faced two other challenges -separatist movements within the newly emerging states and irredentist movements by national minorities wishing to join their kith and kin in neighbouring states. The Horn of Africa, more than any other region, exhibited both tendencies throughout the post-independence era. The LPA, observed more in the breach than in observance by African governments and openly vilified and pooh-poohed by the donor community and the IFIs, was in the true spirit and letter of pan-Africanism while the recent Constitutive Act of the African Union provides the great and historic opportunity for a major breakthrough if it can take off the ground and is sustained. The vision of Pan Africanism has always been very popular in Africa as it makes good economic and political sense. The lack of political commitment by the collectivity of African leadership has, however, been the main impediment. Separatism and irredentism have been latent throughout the colonial era. In fact, both were the principal factors that made the introduction of slave trade in Africa relatively easy in the l6th century with the consequent vast human tragedy. They also paved the way to colonization in the 19th and 20th centuries after the abolition of slavery. The coming under the same imperial raj of hitherto warring nationalities or ethnic groups did give the promise of integration into larger political entities. And indeed virtually all of the present fifty-three member states of ECA are the product of some form of integration or the other. The French colonial administration, unlike its British counterpart, did establish a higher level political organization. Its 13 territories were grouped into two federations -the French West Africa - Afrique Occidental Franyaise (A OF) and French Equitorial African Federation -Afrique Equitorial Franyaise (AEF). The former, whose capital was Dakar, was made up of eight territories - Mauritania, Senegal, French Soudan (now Mali); French Guinea, Dahomey (now Benin), Niger, Cote d' Ivoire, and Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso). French Equitorial African Federation was made up of Central Africa, Chad, Congo, Gabon, and Cameroun. Brazzaville was its capital. The trusteeship territories of Togo and Cameroun administered by France had separate status. Each federated units had its own currency and although the organic unions were much more administrative than economic unions, each did have tremendous potential for economic development after independence if they had not been disbanded. After World War II, each territorial assembly elected five of its members to its federal Grands Conseils. However, as the demand for self-government intensified, France reversed its policy. It aborted and dismantled the regional political integration process. In 1956, without any consultation with the African political leadership, the French colonial authority launched the process of balkanization and in 1958 formally abolished both the A OF and AEF as political organizations, The result was that independence was granted to the 14 territories (including Togo) separately. Each became a sovereign state and member of the United Nations. But as Morgenthau and Behrman have stated, "the sovereignty was political only; it was hard to argue that any of the new states was viable in an economic sense. ..Creating viable nation states out of these nominally independent units became the difficult and challenging tasks of the founding fathers."l Had independence been granted to the two federations only, the history of post-colonial West and Central Africa would have been different. What preoccupied the new nations was the need to minimize the restrictions and constraints that fragmentation and balkanization had imposed through vigorous and relentless promotion of economic cooperation and integration. In fact, some of the initiatives predated independence. For example, the Union douaniere de I' Afrique de I' Quest (West African Customs Union) consisting of Cote d' Ivoire, Senegal, Dahomey, Mauritania, Niger, Mali, and Upper Volta was established in June 1959. The Conseil de I' Entente whose members were Cote d' Ivoire, Upper Volta, Niger and Dahomey was established also in 1959. Indeed, Senegal and French Soudan were so opposed to the French-induced balkanization that they attempted to create the federation of Mali which initially included Upper Volta and Dahomey. But once France granted independence to each territory, the federation collapsed. While the British colonial administrations did not go as far as their French in linking their territories into federal unions, they did not entirely neglect the possibilities of economic cooperation. In British West Africa, they established a common currency and common services. Common research institutes were also established for the four colonies -Nigeria, Gold Coast, Sierra Leone and Gambia -for their main export commodities -cocoa, oil palm, timber and groundnut. In addition, an airways company- the West African Airways Company- was established for the four. . In East Africa, a customs union was established for Kenya and Uganda as far back as 1917. It was extended to Tanganyika in 1927. The union provided for free trade among the countries as well as a common external tariff, a common currency and common income tax regime. Common services for railways, posts and telecommunications and research were also established. This development was encouraged by the fact that Kenya, because of its semi-temperate climate, attracted settlers from the United Kingdom who invested in industry and agriculture and needed a larger market to exploit. After independence, the evolutionary process of regional cooperation and integration in Africa virtually became a movement to the extent that within fifteen years after independence over 20 intergovernmental multi-sectoral economic cooperation organisations had been established and over 120 single sectoral multi-national and bilateral organisations, meant to promote technical and economic cooperation, had been set up. Not surprisingly, therefore, many of the economic and technical cooperation entities or schemes, which had been launched with lot of fanfare in the 1960s, had become moribund by the beginning of the 1970s. However, the African governments in their relentless pursuit of economic cooperation and integration continued to set up new institutions. Indeed, the 1960s could be regarded as Africa's integration decade. The ECA, on its part, took a number of initiatives during the decade to broaden the scope of sub-regional cooperation. It particularly encouraged economic cooperation and integration that would cut across the colonial, francophone-anglophone divide. To this end, it sponsored several intergovernmental meetings of all the then 14 independent West African countries in 1966. These meeting were held successively in Niamey, Accra, Dakar and Monrovia to consider the draft Articles of Association for West African Economic Cooperation prepared by the ECA Secretariat. All these efforts ended in failure. Thus in spite of independence, West Africa remained divided into francophone and anglophone enclaves. The limited attempts to break the barrier were concentrated at the bilateral level, e.g Senegal-Gambia, Nigeria-Niger and Ghana-Guinea-Mali experiments. They were not successful either. Yet, as far back as 1945 at the fifth Pan-African Congress held in Manchester, the establishment of a West African Union as a means of combating the exploitation of the economic resources of West African territories and for ensuring the participation of the indigenous people of the sub-region was high on the agenda. It was not until May 1975 when the Economic Community of West African States (ECOW AS) encompassing all the sixteen West African countries -9 francophone, 5 anglophone and 2 lusophone was established that a break-through was achieved in overcoming the language divide. But this was the result of a strong determination on the part of the two countries -Nigeria and Togo -that took the initiative in sponsoring the establishment of ECOWAS. As I narrated in the Keynote Address which I delivered on September 27, 2001 to the Joint IPAIECOWAS Seminar whose theme was Towards a Pax West Africana: Building Peace in a Troubled Sub-Region entitled ECOWAS at 26- A Retrospective Journey, this was not an easy task. At least one head of state had insisted that until the people of West Africa became bilingual in French and English, cooperation that cuts across the language divide was nigh impossible.2 Fortunately, this was a minority view. The general view was that setting up a sub regional cooperation entity in West Africa that cuts across differences in language, culture and the relative size and economic strengths was an idea whose time had come. And this seal was put on the determination to end the centuries of division and artificial barriers imposed on the people of West Africa from outside. The enthusiasm with which ECOWAS was established in May 1975 was such that at least two heads of state arrived in Lagos for the Summit to formally approve its establishment and sign its treaty with their countries' instruments ratification! This was unprecedented. Also unprecedented was the fact that within a matter of weeks all the sixteen countries had ratified the ECOWAS treaty. Inevitably this development generated a lot of optimism, which encouraged ECA to take similar initiatives in Eastern and Southern Africa and in Central Africa. First, through its MULPOCs for these two sub regions, all the governments in each sub-region entered into an agreement to establish a RIA, subject to satisfactory conclusion of the negotiations. Secondly, an intergovernmental negotiating mechanism was established under the auspices of the MULPOC whose responsibility was to provide the secretariat for the negotiating mechanism. Thirdly, the ECA secretariat was to provide necessary technical and professional backstopping. Fourthly, the support of other UN agencies, particularly UNCTAD, FAO, IFAD, UNIDO and UNESCO would be sought during the negotiating process for such inputs as were deemed necessary. And, finally, the OAU and the ADB were of course to be closely associated with the entire process and to playa proactive role within their respective areas of competencies. In December 1981, the governments of Eastern and Southern Africa signed at Lusaka the treaty establishing the Preferential Trade Area (PT A) for the sub-region. And in October 1983 the government of Central Africa signed the treaty establishing the Economic Community for Central African States (ECCAS). In other words, between 1975 and 1983, Africa did succeed in establishing three sub-region- wide cooperation and integration entities -ECOWAS, PTA/COMESA and ECCAS with 16, 22 and 10 countries membership. For North Africa, there was the Union of Maghreb countries (UMA) consisting of Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia, which had been formed in November 1965, and was revitalised in the late 1980s. The emergence of these four major sub-region-wide organisations did not in any way lead to the rationalisation of the multitude of intergovernmental organizations, nor for that matter stop the formation of new ones. Thus, some 130 intergovernmental, multi-sectoral economic organisations existed side by side with them. Of course this meant that a large number of countries held multiple membership -some belonging to as many as 20 to 25 of such organisations. Such multiplicity inevitably reduced the effectiveness of all the institutions, including the major sub-region-wide organisations. It was this situation that the Lagos Plan of Action and, in particular, the Final Act of Lagos, was required to ameliorate and thereby lay the foundation for the African Economic Community. Regionalisation constitutes the overarching objective of the LPA. Indeed, without regional integration, the LPA collapses as a strategy. The basic philosophy underlying the Plan is self-reliance at national and inter-country levels to formulate and apply autonomous decisions to generate and implement independent ideas, identify problems and analyse and solve them in terms of domestic, inter-country and extra-African requirements. The Plan also aimed to develop capacities and capabilities at national and inter country levels to meet, albeit progressively, the greater part of each region's needs in terms of factors of production and of final goods and services. The LPA is based on the fundamental proposition that economic growth through essential, will neither be sufficient nor indeed be possible without a fundamental transformation of the debilitating distortions in the economic and social structures. Accordingly, the LP A encourages the pursuit of three goals: namely, (i) high and sustained economic growth; (ii) transformation of the economic and social structures; and, (iii) maintenance of a sustainable resource base. In the light of the balkanisation of the continent into arbitrary minuscule nation-states and the difficulties encountered in the task of nation-building, regional and sub regional integration constitutes the principal impulse in restructuring the fragmented African continent into more coherent and stronger economic regional and sub-regional entities. The LPA further postulates that the regionalism sought after involves six mutually interdependent processes
Consequently, seven of the LPA's thirteen chapters focus on Africa's seven strategic sectors -food and agriculture, industry, natural resources, human resources, transport and communications, trade and finance and energy. The remaining chapters are on crosscutting issues such as the environment, science and technology, gender, least developed countries, creating and nurturing institutions for TCDC and development planning, statistics and population. Little wonder that the LPA is acclaimed as the first continent-wide effort by the African governments to forge a comprehensive unified approach to economic development. The Final Act of Lagos stipulates a stage-by-stage modus operandi that must be put in place to achieve this goal. First, is the strengthening of existing sub regional economic groupings and establishing new ones where deemed desirable. Second, is the strengthening of sectoral integration at the continental level. And, third, is the promotion of the coordination and harmonisation among the existing and future economic groupings for a gradual establishment of an African Common Market. To this end, it authorised the drafting of the treaty for the establishment of the African Economic Community whose aim is to promote collective and accelerated self-reliant and self-sustaining development cooperation among the states and their integration in the economic, social and cultural fields. That treaty was subsequently signed in Abuja in June 1991. While efforts were being made to operationalise the African Economic Community (AEC) treaty, African heads of state and government took the giant step of signing, in July 2000, the Constitutive Act establishing the African Union whose dual mandate is to accelerate the political and socio-economic integration of the continent. Until the achievement of full political integration, each of the existing 53 member states is assured interalia of
Practical steps are currently being taken to launch the process of establishing the organs of the African Union. It is expected that within the transitional period of one year provided for in the Constitutive Act following its entry into force, the OAU/AEC will be transformed into the AU. There is no doubt that the signing and ratification within a period of less than one year of the Constitutive Act of the African Union is of great historic portent. As already indicated, the idea of pan-Africanism has always been very popular in Africa. The history of pan-African movement stretches back to three centuries -first created by Africans in diaspora but subsequently adopted and owned by the people living in the continent. But the operationalisation process will be far from being easy. But it is achievable if there is total and sustained political commitment and if African people and their governments will on this occasion learn to put their money where their mouth is. These then are the five phases in the evolution of economic integration in Africa. Cross cutting all these phases has been the realization of the urgent need to develop networks of regional infrastructure. The founding fathers of ECA realized this right from the beginning. At its third session early in 1961 it decided that West African and East African transport conferences be organized with a view to developing a sub-regional transport network in each sub-region as a prerequisite to the development of intra-African trade (Resolutions 32(III) and of 35(III) February 16, and February 17, 1961 respectively). The following year; at its fourth session, it adopted a resolution (Resolution 61(IV) on the development of trans-Saharan transport facilities to promote not only intra-African trade but also African trade with Europe, the Middle East and Asia. It also took similar initiative in the field of communications, railways and ports development on a regional and sub-regional basis. All these initiatives led to the PANAFTEL and TRANSAFRICAN Highways and Railways programmes and culminated in the submission of a request to the General Assembly of the United Nations through its ECOSOC for the proclamation of a United Nations Transport and Communications Decade for Africa (UNTACDA). The period 1978 to 1988 was proclaimed as the first decade (GA Resolution 32/169 of 19 December 1977). This was a historic decision for both the UN and Africa as it was a recognition by the international community that Africa's transport and communications were to be viewed from an integrated regional perspective as opposed to the" less effective modal approach and that a prerequisite for regional integration is a complementary strategy of regional infrastructure development and integration across Africa. Unfortunately, like the economic integration process, regional infrastructure cooperation and integration has not been an outstanding success. The persistence of the trade patterns inherited at independence has been a limiting factor to integrated infrastructure development. Indeed, as long as Africa's trade pattern does not change in form, content and direction, the impetus to alter the continent's infrastructure systems will remain timid. Track record of regional integration in Africa On the positive side, the five phases in the evolution of regional economic integration in Africa highlight two realities -(I) the genuine belief that Regional integration in Africa is an imperative, and (ii) in spite of many pitfalls, the untiring efforts and persistence in forging different cooperation arrangements. The lack of a breakthrough and even the demise of a regional integration arrangement have not deterred renewed effort. Hardly ever is the towel thrown in! In other words, both the idea and the ideals of regionalism have continued to be popular. Nevertheless, the consensus seems to have developed, even among the avowed integrationists themselves, that African regional integration arrangements have not succeeded in achieving their stated goals and objectives. However, this consensus is applicable not only to the African Rios but also to most other Rios in the South. Percy Mistry puts it frankly in these words:
While it is true that in Africa progress has been slow as the integration is yet to impact positively on development and on poverty alleviation, there is no gainsaying the fact that the situation in many cooperating countries could have been worse had no such schemes been in existence. For example, the conflict-induced tragedy in West Africa since the 1980s would have been severely aggravated had there been no ECOW AS without which the setting up of ECOMOG would have been nigh impossible. It is of course true that the opposite is the case in Eastern, Southern and Central Africa -most of whose member states are in PTA/COMESA, even though nine countries have been engaged in opposite camps in the civil war, which has been raging for some years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Direct interventions have also taken place in internal conflicts - South Africa in Lesotho, Senegal in Guinea Bissau and, although it is ferociously denied, some of Sudan's neighbouring countries in the Southern Sudan civil war. It is also true that the vast potentials of intra-Africa trade as well as those within each RIA has hardly begun to be realised. For example, intra-African export and import trade was only 9.53 per cent and 9.31 per cent of total African export and import trade in 1999. Table1 shows intra- regional integration area export and import trade -the highest being ECOW AS while the lowest was ECCAS. Table 2 puts each of the four RIAs in overall Africa's context. Export to ECCAS and import from it are both the lowest and highest respectively. Table 1 Intra-RIAs Trade, 1999 (in percentages)
Source: African Development Bank, Selected Statistics on African Countries 2001, Table 28 Table 2 RIAs Trade with Africa 1999 (in percentages)
Source: African Development Bank, Selected Statistics on African Countries 2001 Table 28 Without doubt, the integration process has suffered from many deficiencies, which account for the lack-Iustre progress. The most common are
In addition, these are some quite fundamental long-term factors inhibiting economic integration. Until they too are successfully addressed, economic integration will continue to lack effectiveness. Let us mention three of them. First and foremost is the failure to achieve structural transformation and economic diversification in member states national economies. After more than four decades of independence the monocultural colonial economy has remained in tact. Virtually all African countries are still heavily dependent on the export of a narrow range of primary commodities. The linkages among the various economic sectors are still weak to the extent that many African economies do not as yet enjoy the mutually supportive sectoral interactions that are essential for building dynamic, self-reliant and self-sustaining economies. There still exists relatively large subsistence or near subsistence sector side by side with the relatively small and disjoint monetized enclaves dominated by mining and other extractive industries. This lack of integrated self-sustaining national economies largely accounts for the ineffectiveness of regional integration in Africa. It also accounts for the lack of capacity to generate domestically either the necessary momentum for sustained development or the capacity to withstand external shocks. This in turn exacerbates the external dependence of the African economies with more than a corresponding negative effect on the promotion of regional cooperation and integration. Two truisms need to be reiterated. First, Africa marching towards the future hand-in-hand with excessively dependent colonial and neo-colonial economy has no dignified future at all; Second, dependent development not only leads to perennial economic crisis but is also an anathema to regional cooperation and integration. The persistent and long-drawn out economic crisis in Africa has considerably slowed the pace of economic co-operation and integration. So have the widespread and persistent conflicts. In any situation of economic social and political destabilisation, the very first victim is regionalism. Unfortunately since the mid-1970s the economies of African countries have been in crisis. The crisis was so intensive and extensive in the 1980s that the decade was categorised as Africa' s lost decade. One of the major underlying factors intensifying the crisis is the heavy debt burden of virtually all African countries. When countries are in such a situation, there is not much room for economic cooperation and integration. Every country tends to protect its economy against 'intruders and competitors when the winds of economic crisis are blowing. Thus, economic crisis is a menace to cooperation and integration. Finally, the donors are more often than not reluctant to fund regional projects most essential for the success of regional cooperation. Multinational projects are usually of low priority in the investment portfolios of international and regional financial institutions. As for the donors, they do not hide the fact that they prefer bilateral to multinational projects. If multinational projects are to be supported, the funding is usually limited to pre-feasibility and feasibility studies and institution- building. And globalisation is adding a new dimension to regional integration. Impact of globalisation on regionalism One of the tragic consequences of the perennial economic and political crises of the 19805 - Africa's lost decade -is that the dawn of the new era of globalisation which began in the 19805 met the African economy and polity virtually on their back. They were caught by the forces of globalisation of information technology, new and more advanced communications technology marketisation, internationalisation of the financial markets and the hegemony of transnational corporations as players in production factor movements -in a complete state of helplessness and hopelessness. Throughout the 1980s Africa had negative real per capita growth in the GDP, its exports in volume declined by 0.1 per cent while in value it increased by only 0.4 per cent. Similarly, imports in volume and value increased by 1.0 per cent and 1.4 per cent (Table 3). It lost all the gains made in the 19605 and 19705 in human development, particularly education, public health and the environment. A process of disindustrialisation and the decumulation of capital has set in. Overall, African exports have done worse than those of other developing countries. While these have maintained their share of world markets at about 20 per cent, Sub Sahara Africa's (SSA's) share fell from 4.2 per cent to 2.1 per cent between 1964 and 1987 and by the beginning of the 1990s, it had fallen to 1.2 per cent. Thus, during a period when the share of world trade in global GDP has risen phenomenally from 28 per cent in 1973 to 52 per cent in 19905, Africa's share has been contracting. As Table 3 further shows, while the 19905 witnessed some improvements they were too timid to impact significantly on Africa's global economic picture nor to halt and turn around the downward trend. Table 3 Overview of Africa's' performance 1980-1999 (in percentages)
Source: IMF World Economic Outlook, May 2000 But Africa's persistent economic crisis severe as it has been is but a consequence of its political crisis. The civil wars and civil strives are but violent reactions to the pervasive lack of democracy, the denial of human rights, the complete disregard of the sovereignty of the people and the lack of empowerment and accountability. Inevitably, internal marginalisation has been grinding away at the foundations of the African society as a result of these deficits -development, democratic and security -whose cumulative consequence is the high incidence of poverty. Africa therefore faces the enormous task of coping with large-scale pervasive internal marginalisation, which in turn partly accounts for its global marginalisation. In other words, all the forces that have contributed to the lack of effective and dynamic economic cooperation and integration are also responsible for the inability of the continent to be an active player in the globalisation process. Unfortunately, one of the most fundamental changes brought about by globalisation is the shift in focus of policy from multilateral negotiations on development issues to the domestic policies and actions of developing countries. International actions specifically aimed at improving the global environment for development -weakness in commodity markets, preferential tariffs for exports from developing countries, transfer of technology on liberal terms, aid on concessional terms and debt relief and debt forgiveness, to mention only a few -have virtually disappeared from the global agenda. So has North-South dialogue ceased to exist. Globalisation has thus effectively put paid- to the concept of international development cooperation. It has transferred the focus of attention to the national level. Indeed, paradoxically as it may sound, the age of surging globalisation may also turn out to be the period of the renewal of proto-nationalism. The retreat of multilateralism as a consequence of the ascendancy of globalisation has hastened the regression to bilateralism. It is in order to ameliorate this trend that new regionalism is emerging. By this is meant the transformation of regional economic cooperation into a holistic, multidimensional process of regional integration, which encompasses economic, political, security, social and cultural dimensions. The new regionalism pursues regional integration as a holistic package. Political ambitions of creating territorial identity, collective security and regional coherence now seem to be the primary, neo-mercantilist goals of the new regionalism (Percy Misty, 1996).4 An overview of the historical perspectives of regional economic integration From this short history of the economic integration process in Africa, what major perspectives have emerged and what lessons can be drawn from them for mapping out the future? What has been wrong with Pan-Africanism? Is it the vision or the actualisation of the vision? Or the impetus interests and forces driving both? It is now clear that the economism of regional cooperation is principally responsible for the slow progress made during the past forty years. By focusing virtually exclusively on economic cooperation and integration while making -the heroic ceteris paribus assumption as far as political and social factors are concerned, has contributed significantly to the lack of progress in the actualisation of the vision. Political fragmentation has brought about the problem of a large number of minuscule states -nations which, with the best will in the world, have no chances of becoming viable, vibrant, dynamic and prosperous. The partitioning and fragmentation of Africa into nation states without regard for history and culture, without respect for the integrity of different nationalities and ethnic groups has made virtually impossible the task of nation building in Africa. Allegiance to the nation-state has not yet transcended ethnic ties. If anything, there has been a regression to parochialism. A state where ethnic ties supersede national allegiance is forced to encounter the problems sociological dualism, the economy of affection and a condition of perennial political instability with national solidarity and cohesiveness always under threat. In such a nation-state, the viability of the national economy is compromised and inevitably regional economic cooperation and integration is superficial rather than intensive. How can the collective of a group of non-cohesive and unstable nation state form a cohesive, stable and dynamic economic region? The African state, as invented by Europeans, has been neither deconstructed nor reconstituted. . This is why there is so much incongruence between the need, desire and search for economic cooperation and integration and its substantive achievement. Therefore, for the future, the pursuit of economic integration must go hand in hand with the pursuit of political stability at the national level and, at least, dynamic political cooperation (in lieu of political integration) at sub-regional and regional levels. The concept of a rainbow society must be the guiding policy framework at all levels. The people in the region must have shared visions, shared values and shared social economy in which the welfare of the people and the community is paramount and the transformation process is socially just, politically participatory and culturally vibrant. The thesis that economic cooperation might eventually lead to political integration is not proven. Both must be factored in as dual objective to be pursued simultaneously. Similarly, the state, the sub region and the region must go through a process restructuring and transformation. Because the African economies have undergone very little transformation during the past four decades, the African states and societies, unlike in other regi9ns, have not gone through any significant of restructuring. Not surprisingly, proto-nationalism has led to the emergence of proto- regionalism. At all levels of the society of a subregion or region, people must learn to develop regional perspectives on all matters and issues and act accordingly. Of course, this becomes a very difficult task if in the creation of RIA the people have not played a proactive role. African integration process has always been government-Ied, but it does not need to be monopolised by governments. Where Africa has beep regrettably lacking is the failure to bring the people on board, and motivate and mobilise them. Currently, to what extent are the people being mobilised in support of the Constitutive Act of the African Union? Like the NEPAD initiative, it is little known in the continent. Both emerged from the highest political level without any serious and sustained effort to consult with the stakeholders and key actors. Neither is a subject for public discourse throughout the continent. There is no evidence of any ongoing serious debate on them even in the national parliaments. Yet Africa claims to be increasingly democratic. To take full advantage of the political vision of the Constitutive Act of the African Union requires that people must b~ given its ownership and to the extent that this is done successfully with real economic integration becoming achievable. This means that all stakeholders must be fully engaged in policy formulation, implementation and monitoring. Governments must perforce learn to yield space -adequate and ample space -to the private sector and organized labour. And in order to maximize their effectiveness, this requires that they also play similar proactive roles at their respective national level. One of the problems of economic integration in Africa is the dearth of the entrepreneurial class in the member states. This is a class of innovators who in their search for profit maximization seek markets beyond their national borders. As this class grows in number, quality and effectiveness, regional integration will grow and become diversified. Over concentration on the choice of institutions needed for integration rather than actually building of the community has tended to weaken the effectiveness of RIA and their relevance. As the ECOW AS Executive Secretary bluntly put it in his 2000 Silver Jubilee Interim Report
This misguided focus has been at the expense of such fundamental issues as ensuring that the principle of supra-nationality is applied, that protocols are implemented and where and when they are contravened that defaulting countries are dealt with in accordance with the Treaty and that the spirit of regionalism and a sense of belonging is cultivated. The FAL has been permanently breached. The raison d' etre for its stage-by-stage approach beginning with subregional economic groupings is to nurse the emergence of one major subregional RIA in each subregion around which all the others will be rationalised. The proliferation of RIAs, which developed in the 1960s has remained unabated. No doubt, the situation is worse in West Africa than elsewhere but proliferation has crept in everywhere. At one stage it looked as if West Africa might blaze the trail by rationalising its NGOs and making ECOW AS the only RIA in West Africa -thus absorbing CEAO and MRU. To this end, an Eminent Persons Committee was mandated to revise the ECOW AS Treaty of 1975. Unfortunately, after the new revised treaty making provision for ECOW AS to become the only economic community organization for West Africa was adopted in Cotonou in January 1993 and the CEAO was dissolved in March 1994 UMOA was immediately transformed into UEMOA. This has thrown integration in West Africa into a crisis situation. Proliferation also exists in Central Africa, and Eastern and Southern Africa. In this connection, the extent to which external influence continues to plague Rios in Africa is an issue which is well known by most political leaders and their policy advisers but which is hardly discussed in civilised circles! To sum up, what all these perspectives point to is the need to adopt a holistic multidimensional interdependent approaches to integration as advocated by the LP A in 1980. These will encompass:
2. The integration of the physical institutional and social infrastructure. 3. Integration of the production structures. 4. The integration of the African markets. 5. Resolution of intra and inter-country conflicts and the prevention of acts of political destabilisation. 6. The creation of an enabling environment for initiative and enterprise and cross-border factor movements. |
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