6th Meeting of the Committee on Trade, Regional Cooperation and Integration

Statement by Mr. Abdoulie Janneh, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ECA

13 October 2009
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Mr. Chairman,
H.E Mr. Ahmed Shide,   State Minister for External Economic Cooperation of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia,
Honourable Ministers,
Your Excellency, Dr. Maxwell Mkwezalamba, AU Commissioner for Economic Affairs,
Distinguished Representatives of Member States,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I extend warm greetings and welcome to you all to ECA, and to the 6th Session of the Committee on Trade, Regional Cooperation and Integration.  Let me thank His Excellency Mr. Ahmed Shide for honouring our invitation with his presence, on behalf of our host Government, to deliver the keynote address. In this regard, Mr. Chairman, I wish to take the opportunity to reiterate our profound appreciation and gratitude to the Government and people of Ethiopia, under the distinguished leadership of His Excellency Prime Minister Meles Zenawi for the conducive environment and unwavering support we continue to receive in our mission to enhance the socio-economic growth and sustained development of the African continent. 

Sincere thanks also to Dr. Maxwell Mkwezalamba, AU Commissioner for Economic Affairs for his presence, and for the continued collaboration we continue to receive from him personally, his Department of Economic Affairs, and the African Union Commission in general, on our work in support of Africa’s development and regional integration agenda.  

We also recognize and commend the presence in this meeting of representatives and experts from member States, regional and subregional institutions.  Partnerships are a critical part of implementing ECA’s agenda on regional integration.  We do immensely appreciate the support and partnership from our development partners, and are indeed thankful for their presence at this meeting.

As you know, this Committee is one of the five ECA’s subsidiary bodies that review the agenda and issues pertaining to their respective development sectors, formulate policies and strategies to address Africa’s development challenges, and determine sectoral work priorities to be reflected in the work programme of the Commission. These committees are composed of senior officials and experts from member States and meet on a biennial basis.

During your meeting in October 2007, you had the opportunity to look at a number of critical issues facing the continent in the regional integration arena. This was also the time that ECA was repositioning itself to focus more closely on regional integration and support Africa’s special needs, in particular NEPAD.  You also listened to a presentation by the African Union on the state of play of Africa’s continental integration agenda and the various steps underway to rationalize the Regional Economic Communities and develop a minimum integration program. You will have the opportunity at this session to review some of the key milestones made on these issues including the Minimum Integration Programme.

Allow me at this juncture to share with you some reflections on how Africa’s continental integration is proceeding.  As is well known, regional integration and the creation of an African common market has been the vision of our continent since the early years of independence. A common market combining our 53 individual countries can only lead to a strong and viable region with economies of scale, greater comparative advantage and competitiveness.  The vision has been clearly laid out in the founding Treaty establishing the African Economic Community (The Abuja Treaty), and later reemphasized by the Constitutive Act of the African Union. 

Africa can be proud of some success stories in its regional integration agenda. Programmes to liberalize trade by breaking down tariff and non-tariff barriers are being earnestly implemented in a number of RECs.  In West Africa for instance, ECOWAS and UEMOA have resolved to operate as a common customs union.  The COMESA, EAC and SADC efforts to create a single Free Trade Area is a highly commendable initiative which should be emulated by other RECs to accelerate regional integration.

On the macroeconomic policy front, some regional groupings have established parameters on macro-economic convergence to help orient their member States’ efforts towards macro-economic reforms and stability. Two integration groupings, namely CEMAC and UEMOA, exist as monetary unions and have a single currency.  Plans for monetary and financial harmonization are in place in COMESA and ECOWAS.

If there is any sector where we see a flurry of activities and up scaling of efforts, it is in the infrastructure area, particularly in terms of road transport development at the national level, which is a development prerequisite for accelerating inter-state networks. The telecommunications sector across Africa has seen a phenomenal progress thanks to the global ICT revolution, which has had a positive impact on Africa, with the private sector playing a leading role. The concept of energy power pooling has gained considerable momentum inspired by the successful experience of the Southern Africa Power Pool pioneered by SADC, while ECOWAS has established a similar power pooling supply and distribution scheme in West Africa, and has now successfully implemented the West African Gas pipeline.

These are laudable achievements to celebrate. But, we still need to redouble our efforts in all these areas.  The challenges remain enormous because we still have a long way to go in attaining our associated goals of achieving free movement of goods, services, capital and people across our regions. We still face serious restrictions to free movement of people across many parts of our continent. Africans cannot move freely within their own continent.

Inadequate infrastructure networks continue to restrict Africa’s capacity to trade. Infra-structural networks remain a huge challenge particularly in transport and energy. Deficiencies have had an impact on cost of doing business and on intra-African trade, which is yet to see an appreciable rise to levels comparable to trading blocs in other parts of the world.

Our Regional Economic Communities continue to face daunting challenges in coping with their mandates as entrusted to them in their treaties and protocols due to a number of reasons including inadequate capacity and resources.

In our view, the most crucial issue we need to confront is addressing what is perceived to be a weak implementation of regional agreements at the national level. You will agree that the success of any regional integration vision requires a strong political will and commitment to implementing commonly agreed policies and programs at the national level. Regional objectives need to be mainstreamed in national policies and budgets to accelerate progress at the sub-regional and regional levels. In a number of constituencies, national mechanisms for coordination, implementation and systematic follow-up of agreed integration objectives are weak, ineffective or lack resources to function effectively.

This matter is on the agenda of this meeting, and it is also the main theme of the session. It is my hope that member States will debate this issue in a frank and open manner, and share best practices on the issue because accelerating progress on Africa’s integration agenda will require strong political commitment through serious measures and actions to implement RECs and AU decisions. 

These are some of the critical issues in the agenda of this meeting. I am confident that at the end of our deliberations, this meeting would have contributed to deepening our understanding of the achievements and prospects of Africa’s regional integration and of future steps needed to be taken towards attaining our goal of continental unity.

I would like to conclude by emphasising that we in ECA, in collaboration  with our partners in development, will continue to do our utmost, as always,  to accompany the efforts of our member States, the African Union Commission and the Regional Economic Communities, towards advancing the developmental and integration agenda of our continent.

I thank you for your attention and wish you fruitful deliberations.