1 THE RELEVANCE OF REGIONAL INTEGRATION FOR

1
THE RELEVANCE OF REGIONAL INTEGRATION FOR
Luk Van Langenhove and Ana-Cristina Costea*
The question “Is Africa an excluded Continent?” is very suggestive of the
endemic difficulties to which the African countries continue to be confronted
nowadays. One can not consider such a question without searching for solutions: is
there any hope to draw Africa out of this state of ‘exclusion’, and can regional
integration contribute? Development is, of course, a long-term process, and no ‘magic
potion’ has been discovered to date. Nevertheless, the recent transformation of the
Organisation of African Unity (OAU) into a more ambitious African Union(AU),
which has identified economic co-operation and integration as the engine to propel
African development, and the creation of the New Partnership for African
Development (NEPAD), where regional integration is also high on the agenda,
suggest new perspectives for the future of the African continent.
Taking into account these recent developments, this paper tries to bring
forward two arguments in favour of the thesis that regional integration is a process of
great importance for making Africa a less ‘excluded continent’: firstly, that New
Regionalism can bring positive developments for the African countries, and,
secondly, that there is a strong potential in the newly created Partnership for African
Development of helping to achieve the UN Development Millenium Goals, by
creating an interlink between the pan-African continent-wide and the sub-regional
integration initiatives.
1. The Mosaic of Regionalism in Africa
Africa’s internal market is in economic terms only about two times larger than
that of Belgium, yet it is fragmented into over fifty countries. When one considers the
*
The authors are affiliated to the ‘Comparative Regional Integration Studies’ programme (UNU-CRIS)
of the United Nations University.
See: www.cris.unu.edu
2
small size and fragmented nature of the African economies and the challenge of
competition in a global context, then it becomes clear that progressive integration
holds great potential for minimising the cost of market fragmentation, and thus
represents a precondition for integrating African economies into the global economy.
As such there is a rising realisation among African countries that Africa’s socioeconomic situation can hardly improve without regional integration.
Regional integration is thus a process of deepening cooperation over areas that
parties agree on as common interests shared by each one. In essence this involves a
process of economic liberalisation among countries. This process is heavily dependent
upon the political will and commitment of the governments concerned, and a
sustained desire to co-operate over the long term.
The drive towards regional integration in Africa, both continent-wide (cf. panAfricanism) and at a sub-continental scale is not new at all. After a first post-colonial
wave of regional integration a second wave started in 1991 with the signing of the
Abuja Treaty regarding the African Economic Community.
A special feature of African regional integration is that African countries have
chosen to create and belong to several regional integration initiatives to pursue their
integration on multiple tracks. Today, of the 53 African countries, 27 are members of
a Regional Economic Community while 18 states belong to as many as three RECs.
Regional integration in the African Union may well proceed initially on a narrower
geographical scale, to coincide with the many sub-regional integration initiatives that
are currently developing across the African continent. These parallel processes and
initiatives need not conflict with the broader goal of the African Union, and may even
offer scope for synergies and increase the potential for further co-operation.
There are currently a variety of examples of regional integration in Africa, the
researchers being challenged by the different aspects of the African mosaic of
overlapping, and sometimes competing forms of regionalism. Different modes of
regional governance (Söderbaum, 2003) have been distinguished in Africa: political
stability clubs (like the SADC), the governing of conflict and plunder (ECOWAS),
the market-driven open regionalism, and finally micro-regionalism (for instance the
Zambia-Malawi-Mozambique Growth Triangle recently studied by Slocum, Mordonu
and De Lombaerde, 2003).
But integration is no magic potion and simplistic recipes of encouraging
integration in the hope of producing significant economic and political effects are not
3
realistic (Goldstein, 2003). African regional integration has notwithstanding its long
tradition achieved little concrete results up to now. This can be accounted to an
unwillingness of certain African governments to cede sovereignty as well as to
failures to resolve deep-rooted conflicts (Diabré, 2003). Next to a lack of structural
stability (including peace and security), an inadequate institutional design certainly
also accounts for the often disappointing results (Kennes, 2003). Nevertheless,
nowadays regional integration itself has changed and as such it still holds promising
potential for Africa.
2. New Regionalism and its potential for Africa
Regional integration acquired several meanings as there have been several
successive waves of regionalism during the last century. After the Second World War,
a first wave of regionalization focused on trade and payments liberalization between
neighboring countries in order to spur inter-country transactions. The current wave of
regionalism is different, as it is increasingly no longer about trade only, but presents
itself as a “ multidimensional form of integration which includes economic, political,
social and cultural aspects and thus goes far beyond the goal of creating region-based
free trade regimes or security alliances. Rather, the political ambition of establishing
regional coherence and identity seems to be of primary importance.” (Hettne,
1999a:xvi). This New Regionalism aims to promote certain “world values” as
security, development, ecological sustainability, better than globalism. (Hettne, 1999)
Regional integration and globalization are the two phenomena challenging the
existing global order based upon sovereign states at the beginning of the XXIst
century. The two processes “deeply affect the stability of the Westphalian state
system, thus contributing to both disorder and (possibly) a new global order.” (Hettne,
1999b:1). Global governance has to evolve nowadays in an international context
deeply marked by the phenomenon of globalization framed in a world-wide process of
changing and evolving levels of governance between: city-regions, states, macroregions, global level.
Regional integration can only work in the context of more open national
economies.
The first step is to work towards trade and payments liberalisation
between neighbouring countries in order to spur inter-country transactions. This is
exactly what happened in the first wave of regionalisation just after the Second World
4
War. But the wave of regionalisation of the 1990s is different form this ‘first wave’:
integration is now not only about trade but in many cases also about security and
regional public goods such as managing water basins, infrastructure, energy and the
environment. Also, regional integration involves more than just states : industry and
civil society are actors and drivers of regional integration as well.
This second wave of regionalism is often referred to as the ‘New
Regionalism’, and the E.U. is the best example of this form of regionalism as it has
managed to develop a model of integration that incorporates political elements in a
deep economic integration. Indeed, what is happening in Europe is quite innovative:
we now have a complex multi-level governance system with a deep co-operation
between states, with firm devolution of power within states and a strong international
legal framework. This has created a political model that challenges assumptions
about governance all over the world. Of course, European integration cannot be seen
as the ‘model’ for the rest of the world. But the underlying idea of multi-dimensional
regional integration that implies co-operation along a number of different dimensions
such as culture, politics, security, economics and diplomacy deserves to be taken
serious in all political and economic efforts to achieve stability and prosperity in a
given region. One cannot isolate trade and economy from the rest of society.
New regionalism is a multi-faced phenomenon, which touches therefore a
much wider number of policies as the ‘old trade-based regionalism’ did. This brings
us to a legitimate question: what is the actual and potential role of regional integration
in global governance? In our opinion, regional integration initiatives should fulfill
nowadays at least eight important functions (Van Langenhove, 2003:4):
• the strengthening of trade integration in the
region;
• the
creation
of
an
appropriate
enabling
environment for private sector development;
• the development of infrastructure programmes
in support of economic growth and regional integration;
• the development
of
strong public sector
institutions and good governance;
• the reduction of social exclusion and the
development of an inclusive civil society;
5
• contribution to peace and security in the region;
• the building of environment programmes at the
regional level; and
• the strengthening of the region’s interaction with
other regions of the world.
Regional integration is, first of all, a tool for enabling free trade. This was the
main function of ‘old regionalism’, with the creation of Free Trade Areas inside
which members removed tariffs against each other and kept their own barriers against
non-members, and, and which could evolve further on into customs unions possessing
a common external tariff against non-member countries.
There has been a wide academic debate in the economical field aiming to
measure the extent to which regional integration can increase free trade. At the
beginning of “old regionalism”, the creation of a FTA and CU were justified, in
economic terms, as long as the trade creation induced by the tariff removal between
member countries was exceeding the trade diversion brought by the displacement of
imports from low-cost third countries producers to high-cost new FTA partners
(Viner, 1950).
The old regionalism theory was based on the concepts of trade creation and
trade diversion derived from a partial equilibrium analysis of the welfare effects of
tariff elimination. The theory can give no definitive answer as to which effect will
predominate. The customs union theory fails to take into account the dynamic effects
of RTAs – arguably the most important in the long run. A larger regional market
provides the opportunities for economies of scale, stimulated competition and
provides incentives for investment. Achieving economies of scale is very important
for firms in small countries and especially in developing countries. Economies of
scale may occur through product specialisation enabling firms in tow countries to
specialise in particular product lines instead of producing the full product line (to
rationalise production and to internationalise production).
Perhaps the most important effect of an RTA is the stimulus to competition
and investment which it brings Large firms in small countries protected by tariffs will
lose their monopolistic quiet life as border protection falls forcing them to compete in
the larger market. The investment stimulus will include foreign direct investment
6
(FDI), which brings added competition. Customs union theory ignores transport costs,
which can ultimately decide the fate of a RTA. New regionalism theory integrates the
dynamic effects of economic integration, the interaction between trade and
investment, and the role of institutional arrangements as incentives for regional
integration.1
The new regionalism is determined by the structural changes in the global
economy of the 1990s brought about by globalisation. Following successive trade
liberalisation in the GATT/WTO, FDI has become much more important in the global
economy as investment flows are now growing faster than trade flows. Firms have an
incentive to switch from trade to FDI when trading costs (transport costs and
government regulatory barriers) are high and investment costs (including
communications costs) are rapidly declining. The size of the market is another factor,
which encourages FDI. Experience shows that as countries converge in their factor
endowments, technical efficiency and market size, there will be a move from intraindustry trade to intra-industry investment, provided that transport costs remain
significant.
As highlighted by Gavin (Gavin, 2003:284), the New Regionalism differs
from the old regionalism in a “number of important ways:
•
Typically, the new regionalism has a number of small
countries, which are willing to link up with a large neighbouring country,
which plays the role of regional hegemon;
•
The small countries are involved in a process of unilateral
liberalisation and they want to consolidate it by linking up with a large anchor
country;
•
The new regionalism is about deep integration. It goes beyond
liberalisation off trade in goods and deals with services and investment issues;
•
There is no big bang trade liberalisation but rather a slow
gradualist approach;
•
The new regionalism occurs between countries that are
geographically close to each other;
1
For the essentials of new regionalism theory, see R. Lawrence (1996), Regionalism, Multilateralism
and Deep Integration, and W.J. Ethier (2001), ‘Regional Regionalism’, in S. Lahiri (ed.),
Regionalism and Globalization Theory and Practice.
7
•
Small countries consider RTAs as a means to strengthen their
bargaining position in international trade negotiations.”
Two questions arise here: first, how far is this new economic regionalism
compatible with the economic multilateralism promoted through the WTO, and,
second, is regional economic integration also positive for developing countries (in
other words, is free trade also fair)?
The question whether regional trading arrangements hinder or contribute to the
good functioning of the multilateral trading system is a very interesting one. As
underlined by G. Sampson, it addresses two developments which appear to be
paradoxical (Sampson, 2003:3): “on the one hand, non-discrimination is the pillar of
the multilateral trading system, on the other, all but 2 of the 140-plus members of the
World Trade Organisation (WTO) are parties to al least one – and some as many as 26
– preferrential trading arrangements.”
A recent analysis on whether regional trade agreements are building blocks or
stumbling blocks in the way of multilateralism, concluded that “what characterizes
policy development in dealing with the regulatory issues in trade and investment
regimes is a multi-level process rather than a choice between regional and multilateral
approaches. Regional agreements represent one aspect of this multi-level process. The
question should therefore be about what role regional agreements play in this multilevel process”. (Woolcock, 2003:315)
Multilateral trade liberalisation fosters global trade but it increases transport
costs relative to regional trade. At the same time the dramatic fall in communications
costs is driving the shift from exporting to FDI. So regional integration that fosters
‘investment creation’ is preferable to further multilateral trade liberalisation. Since the
size of the market is crucial in attracting FDI, small countries compete to attract
foreign investment by ‘regionalising ‘ their market. Small countries may be willing to
pay a premium for this by making considerable economic reforms. By linking up with
a large country small countries gain credibility in the eyes of foreign investors.
As such, New Regionalism can be a mechanism that (i) allows small countries
to have a voice next to large countries and (ii) allows poor countries to integrate more
easily in the world economy. But, New Regionalism needs to prove its ‘added value’
constantly, also for developing countries. Free trade also needs to be fair trade. The
potential benefits of New Regionalism for developing countries, and, in the same
8
time, its relevance for making the African continent a less ‘excluded’ one, are the
following ones :
I. it can contribute to a smooth and gradual integration in the
world economy;
II. it can create bigger local markets and more competition among
peers;
III. it can strengthen the bargaining power of developing countries
in the WTO;
IV. it provides a framework for public investments in infrastructure
and public goods;
V. it allows to exploit complementarities where they exist;
VI. it provides a framework for promoting and sustaining stability
and security.
Achieving these benefits is, as already mentioned, only possible in the context
of open national economies. But, unilateral trade liberalization, as recommended by
the Breton Woods institutions seems no longer to be a popular strategy, as unilateral
strategies do not automatically improve market access. North-South integration
combined with a South-South integration seems to be a valuable alternative, but the
question is: should this also imply a North-South symmetry in market access? I don’t
think so. The ‘Special and Differential Treatments’ (SDT) put into place by the WTO
need to be continued and strengthened. In other words: North-South regional trade
agreements should be asymmetrical in terms of market access! And also, North-South
Regional Trade Arrangements need to be backed by development assistance.
Therefore it is important that regional integration becomes an inclusive aspect of all
development policies of donors.
Regional integration has the potential to promote free and fair trade
simultanously. But the wave of regionalisation of the 1990s implies more than trade
integration, it brings also an important function of security. The 1990s have witnessed
an increasing role of regional integration organisations as an instrument for peace and
security. This is due to the change of the definition of security. In the aftermath of the
Cold War, the security agenda has shifted from a bipolar confrontation to the spread
of regional and local “low intensity conflicts”. At the same time, the security threats
9
are no longer linked only to the military conflicts but also to political, economical,
social and even environmental concerns, expressed in the term of “societal security”
coined by the Copenhagen School at the beginning of the 1990s. (Weaver, 1993;
Buzan, 1993; Wiberg, 1993)
This shift in the content of security has brought a change in the nature of
international action, mainly UN-led, from classical operations of peace keeping
(mainly interposition between parties in conflict) to second and even third generation
operations, focusing on peace building after the end of conflicts and peace
enforcement. The new security agenda became “considerably less monolithic and
global, and considerably more diverse, regional and local, in character than the old
one” (Buzan, 2000:12)
The post Cold War era security agenda can be analysed therefore according to
Barry Buzan using the security complex theory, which considers that all the states in
the system are “enmeshed in a global web of security interdependence. But because
most political and military threats travel more easily over short distances than over
long ones, insecurity is often associated to proximity. […] The normal pattern of
security interdependence in a geographical diverse anarchic international system is
one of regionally based clusters, which we label security complexes” (Buzan, 2000:2).
The security complex is defined as “ a set of states whose major security perceptions
and concerns are so interlinked that their national security problems cannot be
reasonably analysed or resolved apart from one another.” (Buzan, 1991:190)
Aware of this transformation of the security agenda, several regional
initiatives have extended their functions from economy to cooperation in security
related problems.
The EU is a good example in this sense as it has developed it’s own Conflict
Prevention and Peace Building Capacity and in the same has widened the scope of
such actions extending crisis management beyond the military and police measures to
development co-cooperation and conditionality of aid (Laakso, 2002). According to
Lehtinen, through promoting regional integration processes in Africa, the European
Union aims to integrate the African countries in the world economy and to promote
regional security and stability. (Lehtinen, 2002) Europe to promote regional
integration in Wider Europe.
This evolution of regional initiatives to adding new security functions is
visible not only on the European continent. In Africa as well, some regional
10
organisations have gradually evolved from an economic role towards including
security functions, with more or less success, as highlighted by Francis (2003) who
has recently explored the nexus between economic and security regionalism in West
Africa, through the prism of ECOWAS regionalism and its expansion into the
complex security frontier in the form of the ECOWAS Cease-fire Monitoring Group
(ECOMOG).
Which is the added value of having a regional rather than global security
intervention? According to Laakso, “Evidence from ending intra-state conflicts shows
that regional actors play a significant role. As “third parties” they can facilitate
mediation between the warring parties and their active involvement can reduce the
risk of a breakdown of the peace settlement. By sending troops to protect or separate
the warring parties, or promising to do so if necessary, and utilising effective crisis
management capabilities and economic pressure they can be pivotal for lasting peace.
Regional actors can provide guarantees, particularly to the weaker parties that the
peace settlement will hold.” (Laakso, 2003:5)
As highlighted by Kivimäki, there are several characteristics of regional
integration which can allow for a positive correlation between regional integration
and the lack of inter-state wars (Kivimäki, 2002:15-27):
•
Trade-related, positive inter-dependence;
•
Common identity;
•
Common procedures of dispute-settlement inter-state;
•
Prosperity and economic stability;
•
Containment of violence by building up a structure of
disincentives.
Of course, the existence of regional organizations in a certain area doesn’t
necessarily bring success in preventing conflicts. Africa is a good example in this
regard; failures have been often explained, like in the case of the SADC Organ on
Politics, Defence and Security, by the persistence of major political and strategic
differences between member states (or the absence of common values), and the lack
of commitment to a common security regime (Nathan, 2002). The analysis performed
show that “The efficiency of a regional actor seems to depend on it’s credibility, as
well as it’s political, military, and or economic power. This, however, is not always
11
concomitant with the consolidation of democracy and can involve attempts to
promote the agenda of the actor itself instead of those of the conflict parties.”
(Laakso, 2003:5)
But the potential of regional initiatives to foster security is very evident, to the
extent that it has been gradually acknowledged by the United Nations, the principal
provider of security at global level. The cooperation between UN and regional
organizations in the security operations can be based on the UN Charter Chapter VIII,
which mentions the possibility to empower regional organisations and arrangements
for action in regional disputes, but always in support to the primary role exercised by
the UN Security Council. In the period 1993-2003, a formal cooperation between
these organizations and the UN seems to have started developing throughout 5 official
meetings between the UN Security Council and some Regional Organizations
(namely OAS, CARICOM, Arab League, AU, ECOWAS, EU, OSCE, CIS, NATO,
OIC), intended to develop this framework for joint action in the security domain.
The “Agenda for Peace” and the “Supplement to an Agenda for Peace”
adopted in 1993 highlight the advantages and potential for the division of labor in
using the regional arrangements for the mechanisms of peace discussed (preventive
diplomacy, peacekeeping, peacemaking and post-conflict peace building). The
Supplement outlines even different forms of cooperation and the principles that
should govern it: the establishment of flexible mechanisms for consultation; respect
for the primacy of the UN in the maintenance of peace and Security; a clear definition
of the division of labor to avoid overlap and institutional rivalry; and coherence of
member states of both organisations in dealing with a common problem.
3. The NEPAD: a tool for achieving the U.N. Millenium Development Goals ?
The U.N. is a global organization with sovereign states as members. As such,
it tries to be an agent of conflict resolution as well as an agency providing global
public goods and promoting universal human rights. Right from its origins, the U.N.
has struggled with the question of what place supranational regional organizations
should and could take in achieving the U.N. goals. On one end of the extreme there is
the position that regionalism blocks the necessary global and universal approach
needed to solve the problems of today. At the other end there is the position that
regionalism can serve the overall U.N. goals.
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This is the position we at the UNU-CRIS want to defend: New Regionalism is
an important tool for developing countries. It can help to contribute to strengthening
development and security in Africa and to achieving the objectives codified in the
United Nations Millenium Development Goals. While analysing the objectives of
NEPAD and its long-term vision of fostering economic growth and eradicating
poverty by an African-owned and African-led development programme, one can only
underline it’s importance for serving the UN Millenium Development Goals. It is also
highly suggestive of the strong interlink between the global UN goals, the regional
and sub-regional integration schemes in Africa, and the development of this continent.
The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) was adopted at the
37th session of the OUA Assembly of Heads of State and Government in July 2001 in
Lusaka. In July 2002, the Organisation of African Unity was transformed into a more
ambitious African Union, which has identified economic co-operation and integration
as the engine to propel African development and pursued the implementation of
NEPAD. Consequently, the 2002 G8 Summit in Canada focussed on “building a new
partnership for Africa’s development” as one of the three summit priorities.
NEPAD stems from the ‘the determination of Africans to extricate themselves
and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and exclusion in a
globalising world’ (NEPAD, October 2001: p.1, § 1), aspiring therefore to make
Africa a less marginalized continent. It’s long term objectives are the eradication of
poverty, the achievement of sustainable growth and development, and the promotion
of the role of women in all activities. The document clearly specifies among
NEPAD’s specific targets, the goal of ensuring ‘that the continent achieves the agreed
International Development Goals (IDGs)’ (NEPAD, October 2001: p. 18, § 68),
which are clearly enumerated:
•
To reduce the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by
•
between 1990 and 2015;
•
To enroll all children of school age in primary schools by 2015;
•
To make progress towards gender equality and empowering
half
women by eliminating gender disparities in the enrolment in primary and
secondary education by 2005;
13
•
To reduce infant and child mortality ratios by two-thirds
between 1990 and 2015;
•
To reduce maternal mortality ratios by three-quarters between
1990 and 2015;
•
To provide access for all who need reproductive health services
by 2015;
•
To implement national strategies for sustainable development
by 2005, so as to reverse the loss of environmental resources by 2015.
Of outmost importance, ‘Increased African integration’ is mentioned among
the four expected outcomes of the NEPAD strategy, together with economic growth,
reduction in poverty and inequality, diversification of productive activities, enhanced
international competitiveness and increased exports (NEPAD, October 2001: p.15, §
69). The conditions for Sustainable Development outlined in the strategy rely on the
achievement of actions addressing security, institutional weakness and economic
problems managed by the Peace and Security, Democracy and Political Governance
and the Economic and Corporate Governance Initiatives.
Moreover, the Economic and Corporate Governance Initiative is specifically
focusing on sub-regional and regional approaches to development underlining the
need for African countries to strengthen the five sub-regional economic groupings
of the continent in order to improve their international competitiveness. The NEPAD
aspires to ensure provision of ‘essential regional public goods (such as transport,
energy, water, ICT, disease eradication, environmental preservation, and provision of
regional research capacity), as well as the promotion of intra-African trade and
investments’ (NEPAD, October 2001: p.20, § 92) and to rationalize the current
institutional framework for economic integration.
The New Partnership for Africa’s Development presents itself as an ‘umbrella’
initiative acting as a channel for using more efficiently the various efforts of the subregional initiatives currently in place on the African continent. Member organizations
such as ECOWAS and COMESA, are in charge of different tasks in the framework of
the partnership, allowing therefore for a better use of the scarce resources provided by
donors. Strengthening regional co-operation by creating functional links between the
different sub-regional organisations is a promising step towards more co-ordinated
14
and coherent Africa-led actions in favour of development. In this context, the African
Union plays a crucial role given it’s status of initiator of NEPAD and it’s continental
dimension.
The July 2003 progress report by the NEPAD Heads of State and Government
Implementation Committee (HSIG), highlights the unprecedented high-level political
will and involvement by African Heads of State and Government towards sustainable
development, as well as of the ‘higher level of interest, co-ordination and involvement
of African development institutions. African institutions such as the African
Development Bank [ADB] and the Regional Economic Communities [RECs] have
enhanced their efforts towards the implementation of Africa’s socio-economic
development programmes’. (Assembly AU, 10 July 2003)
The philosophy of NEPAD has many positive aspects in the sense that it wants
to bridge economy, peace and security. Nevertheless, while assessing the potential of
such an enterprise, several constraints have to be taken into account. As argued by
Ondo-Methogo (Ondo-Methogo, 2003), an economic and social development strategy
such as NEPAD can only be viable and sustainable if thoroughly appropriated by
African countries and their leadership. He also stressed that the main problem for
NEPAD is the problem of indebtedness.
From this perspective, the Millennium
Development Goal of cutting the level of African poverty in half by the year 2015 is
an extremely high objective given the low average growth rate. A country as Gabon
spends nearly 50% of its annual budget on paying foreign debts. Hence, a substantial
increase of the growth rate of the GDP is not possible without a substantial alleviation
of its debt burden!
According to Campbell (Campbell, 2003), the objectives of NEPAD can only
be realised in the context of sub-regional and regional integration: nevertheless, the
issue is not just more integration but the manner and the conditions of integrating the
continent, a critical role being played by the existence of sound regional and
continental institutions and by an increasing re-distributive role for African
governments. To this end, ‘there is still clearly room for further articulation of the
objectives of NEPAD and the role of African regional institutions which provide the
legitimacy and leverage for their implementation’ (Campbell, 2003).
In other words, while increased regional integration might be essential for the
African development, in order to be successful, certain critical pre-conditions have to
be met.
As underlined by Diabré (Diabré, 2003), this implies well-functioning
15
institutional structures as well as compensating mechanisms to counter the unequal
distribution of benefits from integration.
5. Conclusions
Regional integration has an enormous potential for African development and
for ‘including’ the ‘excluded’ continent in today’s global world. We have tried to
show here that there are remarkable benefits in the approach of New Regionalism. We
do not want to seem over-optimistic in this assessment, as one is daily confronted to
images of conflicts, instability and disintegration in certain areas of the African
continent. Nevertheless, wars and ethnic violence are themselves often derived from
the problem of boundaries. Instead of trying to re-draw boundaries, regional
integration presents the advantage of allowing to ‘de-signify the boundaries’ (Griggs,
1997) by the organization of a common regional effort towards peace and
development, towards an ‘African Renaissance’.
On one hand, NEPAD seems to represent an important step in this sense, as it
tries to bridge all the divides by creating an inter-face between the several regional
agreements, the continental-wide UA and the development goals of the UN. This
initiative represents a complex and promising project, as it acknowledges that efforts
towards economic integration can neither be separated from peace and security
concerns, nor from the need to be driven by African civil society and African leaders.
On the other hand, in order to achieve success, all efforts towards effective integration
need to be supported by an adequate institutional infrastructure.
New regionalism can be an important tool for Africa to allow the continent to
profit at maximum from globalisation and to protect themselves from the dark sides of
globalisation at the same time! But regional integration is a complex process that
needs vision, sound institutions, resources and a broad societal support.
16
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