AFRICA-DEVELOPMENT: Integrate or Sink, African Countries Told

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Melvis Dzisah

ABIDJAN, May 28 1998 (IPS) - Regional integration is a concept that has been cropping up in African political circles for about four decades now, but so little has been achieved in that area that its proponents still feel the need to debate its importance.

They had yet another opportunity to do so at a symposium here on ‘Regional Cooperation and Integration in Africa: Progress, Obstacles and Challenges’, held in connection with the annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the African Development Bank (AfDB).

The word from the May 26 symposium was that African countries have to band together or perish. They need to work towards rapid integration, given the new challenges posed to their economies by globalisation, participants in the symposium stressed.

From the time African countries started becoming independent in the 50’s and 60’s, their leaders frequently referred to integration as one of the things that were very important for rapid continental growth and development.

In fact, integration was one of the ideas behind the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and it is still one of the goals of the regional body.

“Even before the signing of the Organisation of Africa Unity (OAU) Charter, the struggle of African leaders against colonial domination generated a vision of a pan-African regional economic space to be administered by a pan-African political arrangement,” recalled OAU Under-Secretary General Vijay Makhan.

“But what went wrong on the way so that more than four decades on, those laudable ideas are yet to be achieved?” Makhan asked participants in the symposium.

According to Makhan, regional integration is not advancing enough because of an apparent conflict between the national development plans of member countries and the co-operation and integration programmes of regional economic communities.

“Indeed, when regional policy decisions are adopted these are not incoporated into national programmes or aligned with national legislations,” he explained, “as such there is the tendency for countries to overlook their financial obligations and commitments to their regional organisations.”

He thinks Africa’s integration efforts would improve greatly if the structural adjustment programmes pursued by its countries were harmonised with the programmes of regional economic communities in such a way that each complements the other.

“If these are done, the possibilities for sustainable growth and develoment in Africa will become more achievable, anchoring the continent on an irreversible and sustainable growth path,” he pointed out.

In the area of trade, for example, exchanges between African nations is estimated at only about seven percent of Africa’s total trade.

According to Percy Mistry, chairman of Oxford International, African nations cannot afford not to integrate. “Thirty-three of Africa’s 54 countries have a population of less than 10 million, with an average income of under 400 U.S. dollars, which is unequally distributed,” he told the symposium. “Twenty of these countries have less than four million people and 11 have less than 1.1 million.”

“Taken individually, extant effective purchasing power in these countries is so small and so concentrated as to render uneconomic the creation of any viable national market or industrial base,” argued Mistry.

He admitted that regional integration would not automatically overcome the difficulties posed by unviable markets through market enlargement, but could allow for resource sharing which would lessen the problems now posed by small closed national markets.

“Transport costs in these countries, especially the landlocked ones, often account for between 30 and 50 percent of the final retail price of most consumer goods,” Mistry emphasised.

According to a recent publication of the African Research Consortium, Africa’s regional integration arrangements may not necessarily contribute to the region’s development. “A proliferation of regional schemes have duplicate memberships and have been ill conceived, poorly designed and are inadequately implemented,” it said.

In West Africa, for example, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which comprises all 16 West African nation co-exists with the West African Monetary Union (UMOEA), which links the French-speaking countries of the region.

Further south, many members of the relatively vibrant Southern African Development Community (SADC) also belong — albeit half- heartedly, some would say — to the Common Market of East and Southern African States (COMESA), a much larger body that appears to lack direction.

For K.Y. Amoako, executive director of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), regional integration and export gains will not yield real fruits unless there is national commitment and consistency in pursuing reforms in areas such as banking and trade policies.

“Regional integration is a useful tool for growth, but it cannot paper over inadequate national preparations,” he said. “Nor for that matter, can economic integration paper over political issues between States, but it certainly can enhance mutual interests which can put troubling political issues in a broader perspective.”

“Seen through the lens of self-interest,” he added, “the need for integration of our economies, as expressed through trade, investment and … coordination of policies, has a much stronger rationale than that of boosting inter-continental trade and, regardless of the World Trade Organisation’s timetable, a much more urgent timetable.”

Participants agreed that obstacles to integration in Africa have been Africa’s own doing, so the continent should live up to the present challenges posed to its economies by marginalisation and globalisation.

“Regional cooperation and integration in Africa,” Mistry stressed, “is unlikely to succeed unless the political case for it is made more forcefully and the political will to make it succeed is mustered.

“It is up to Africa to do so.”