Topics publications: African regional integration
Books
Monitoring Regional Integration in Southern Africa Yearbook 2012
The Monitoring Regional Integration Yearbook has become a household name in the SADC region, when it comes to monitoring the progress or non-progress of integration within the southern Africa region.
Celebrating its 12th edition in the current year it has proven to be a platform of scientific discussion and exchange of political views. A closer look at the 2012 issue sheds some light on the variety of subjects that drive or hinder regional integration. They range from the influence of emerging powers like China on the SADC region to the cooperation between MERCUSOR and SACU to the role of legislature in the process of integration. It also reaches beyond the SADC region to take a closer look at developments in Eastern Africa. The thematic approach spans from trade to transport, from energy to the judiciary.
With major elections just lying ahead or just having passed (Angola, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia), with the issue of the SADC tribunal still unsolved, with critical challenges such as the sustainable energy supply not finally addressed, the region once again seems to have arrived at a watershed moment:
What good can the process of regional integration do to provide solutions for the challenges the region is facing? How can Southern Africa arrive at a stage, where the ideas of a common market, free trade, stability, security and sustainability are implemented successfully?
From the standpoint of many western analysts, Africa seems to be the rising continent, full of opportunities and no longer just challenges. But in order to grasp these opportunities Southern Africa needs to have the proper mechanisms in place to facilitate investments and to ensure prosperity for larger parts of its population. These mechanisms are also needed to let the region emerge as one of the new global players, especially when it comes to economic development.
It is against this background that the 12th edition of the Monitoring Regional Integration in Southern Africa Yearbook should be seen as contribution to further drive the process of integration and to address critical development, challenges, but also successes.
© 2013 Trade Law Centre and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
Publication of this book was made possible by the support of the Trade Law Centre (tralac) and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. The views expressed by the authors are not necessarily the view of any of these institutions.
Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce the material contained in these books for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. Please contact us to obtain authorisation for reproducing this material.
Trade Briefs
tralac Policy Brief: A new tribunal for SADC, but with limited jurisdiction and fewer powers
At the recent SADC Summit for Heads of State and Government, which took place from 17 to 18 August 2013, in Lilongwe, Malawi, an important decision on the future of the SADC Tribunal was taken. The Tribunal was suspended by a Summit decision in 2010, following its rulings against Zimbabwe involving human rights violations. Zimbabwe participated in the Summit deliberations and decision to suspend the Tribunal.
Since that time no disputes about the application or interpretation of any SADC legal instrument could be settled in a binding and final manner. This impasse might now be resolved, albeit in a manner which will strip the Tribunal of many of its powers.
This important development ushers in a de novo negotiating process and will result in a very different dispute settlement dispensation in SADC. The first point to note is that the Summit has called for inter-state negotiations to adopt the text of the new Protocol for the SADC Tribunal. The negotiations will start with preparatory work that the Ministers of Justice/Attorneys-General of the member states will undertake.
These negotiations will hopefully not be a long and drawn-out process since this matter has seen in depth discussions over the last few years. The requirement of ratification before entry into force may however cause extended delays. The Summit decision states that the new Protocol will have to be ratified by two thirds of the Member States to enter into force. Since national constitutional procedures will then enter the picture, it may be quite some time before SADC sees its new Tribunal. Ratification should therefore be prioritized and should remain on the Summit’s agenda.
Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.
Trade Briefs
tralac Policy Brief: The Review of the SADC RISDP Matters
The increasing prominence and complexity of global value chains and the associated production, investment and trade relations have prompted new approaches to economic governance. Competitiveness hinges critically on the reduction of transaction costs, the integration of new generation issues into a trade strategy and facilitation of cross-border economic linkages. These developments also require new thinking about regional economic integration.
The on-going mid-term review of the SADC Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) avails the region an opportunity to develop a 21st century integration agenda for Southern Africa. This new thinking should embrace a competitiveness development agenda, which addresses practical constraints faced by the region as it seeks to interact with itself and the rest of the world.
The RISDP review is an opportunity to develop a 21st century integration agenda for southern Africa, which addresses practical issues related to the movement of goods, services, capital and labour as part of a competitiveness strategy. The imperative for rules-based governance of the regional integration process cannot be overemphasized. The suspension of the SADC Tribunal in September 2010 is widely viewed as a retrogressive step with major consequences for regional governance. The outcome of the mid-term review of the RISDP can only be relevant to the region if it deals with these issues as they remain critical in informing the regional integration process going forward.
- Download: tralac Policy Brief final RISDP Review
Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged.
Trade Reports
Special economic zones and regional integration in Africa
One of the most prominent features of the global trading landscape in recent years has been the worldwide proliferation of bilateral and regional trade agreements. Africa is no exception to this pattern. Another prominent development in Africa over the last couple of decades has been the increasing use by many countries in the region of various types of special economic zones. These zones are more and more being viewed in the region as important mechanisms for attracting foreign investment, creating jobs, boosting manufacturing production and manufactured exports and contributing to much-needed industrial and economic development.
This paper does not seek to provide an evaluation of the performance of the various special economic zone programmes established in Africa in recent years, but instead seeks to explore the various issues, challenges and opportunities that arise when countries – and especially developing countries – use special economic zones while simultaneously pursuing regional integration initiatives.
This is a particularly important subject in the context of the COMESA-EAC-SADC T-FTA as a large number of the countries involved are actively using special economic zones or are currently in the process of establishing zone programmes.
Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.
Trade Briefs
An analysis of Africa’s export performance and export similarity for select countries within the Tripartite Free Trade Area market
This study discusses the issue of Africa’s export performance and, more specifically, focuses on export competition for South Africa and Kenya in the envisaged COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) which was launched on 12 June 2011 at a summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The motivation behind this analysis is based on the premise that the apparent objective behind the trade strategies being adopted by African countries is to achieve a number of goals such as to create a competitive environment and achieve sustainable economic growth and development, with emphasis being placed on increasing exports. In this process, the TFTA will be the continent's biggest FTA comprising 26 countries spanning from Cape Town to Cairo with an estimated market potential of US$ 1 trillion.
This study investigates the degree of South Africa and Kenya’s export similarity with those of various exporters to the TFTA market. Calculating export similarity is useful in determining the similarity or dissimilarity of countries in terms of their export compositions. To achieve this, the Export Similarity Index (ESI) proposed by Finger and Kreinin (1979) is used. The various countries considered in this analysis include both developing and developed countries. This comparison serves two purposes: (i) analysing the similarity of South Africa and Kenya’s exports with those of other major developing countries provides a measure of how directly these countries compete with RSA and Kenya in the TFTA market; and (ii) the comparison with developed countries offers an indication of the level of sophistication of their exports.
Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.
Trade Briefs
Redirecting the Tripartite Free Trade Agreement negotiations?
At the first summit of the Tripartite Free Trade Agreement (T-FTA) states in October 2008 in Kampala, certain decisions were adopted on how to launch and undertake the process of establishing this new regional trade arrangement called the Tripartite FTA. There were promising ideas about an opportunity to achieve a new design for intra-Africa trade and there was a plan.
The objective at the time was, as stated in the adopted documentation, to establish one proper FTA with the typical legal and institutional features of such an arrangement. The draft agreement subsequently prepared for the purpose of directing the negotiations reflected this assumption; it proposed a single agreement for all 26 states involved by virtue of their membership of the East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
Somewhere along the way the focus has shifted rather dramatically. What is presently discussed will lead to a very different outcome. One of the original objectives, to address the problem of overlapping membership, will not be achieved. The opposite will come about. How did this happen and what will the implications be? Is it possible to revert back to the original plan?
Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.
Trade Reports
A new approach to a regional Free Trade Agreement in east Africa: ‘willing participants’
Earlier tralac research (Sandrey et al., 2011) explored the economic background to the so-called Tripartite Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This showed that while there were solid economic gains to such an FTA there were also many problems, both from an economic perspective and from the political-economy perspective, and furthermore these problems were interrelated.
Highlighted were the problems of (a) overlapping memberships in the region and (b) the substantial economic losses for some countries resulting from comprehensive trade liberalisation. In addition, and while perhaps not highlighted but certainly in the background, is the regional problem of several failed or semi-failed states that are patently not candidates for regional integration.
This paper takes what can be described as the European Union (EU) approach of starting regional integration slowly from a base of those few countries that appear to be ready for comprehensive liberalisation. This EU approach has been one of starting modestly in 1960 with the original six members and slowly enlarging (and deepening) over the years to the current 27 members and counting.
We believe that such an approach has potential for east Africa and consequently we assess the five countries in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), the five in the EAC and Egypt as being our foundation members of what we call ‘an FTA of the willing’ with tariff reductions only. The objective of this paper is to use the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) computer model to assess the economic implications of this approach to regional integration.
Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.
Trade Briefs
An analysis of the SADC Free Trade Area
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Free Trade Agreement (FTA) has been entering into force over a period of time. It was originally set to become fully operational by 2008, and it has progressively become more of a reality since around that time.
Trade data for the region and Africa is notoriously unreliable and difficult to obtain, and this has consequently made the current exercise of gleaning trade and tariff data to assess the SADC FTA difficult and frustratingly incomplete. We have used the International Trade Commission (ITC) data for their most recent 2010 trade as the source of data, augmented by World Trade Organisation (WTO) and SACU overall trade figures. Even this data is incomplete and not necessarily consistent with other data. However, we are able to confirm the commonly accepted position that intra-SADC trade is low (and not necessarily increasing) and that South African trade dominates both the overall SADC and intra-SADC trade. In particular, South African exports were 68.1% of intra-SADC exports for 2010, our base year, but a significantly lower 14.8% of intra-SADC imports as Angola, with 31% of regional global exports, only contributes some 5.8% of the intra-SADC exports (and much lower import shares). It makes a big difference if Angola and the DRC are included in SADC trade analysis.
Overall, the FTA is making solid progress; much of that progress has been driven by SACU’s offer of largely tariff-free access to the other SADC member states. The fact that Angola, the DRC and Seychelles have not yet joined the FTA, and the exceptions from the tariff offers of many other members, means that this FTA still has quite some distance to travel.
Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.
Trade Reports
A brief overview of intra-African trade in east and southern Africa: Kenya, Zambia and Uganda
The historically low levels of intra-African trade have made Africa vulnerable to external economic shocks and have fostered a dependency on the rest of the world. As a result of these low levels of trade many African countries have not been able to use trade to enhance specialisation between countries and accelerate development and integration. The high cost of doing business in the region due to infrastructural gaps, duplicate border procedures and high transportation costs are a major deterrent for opportunities to enhance both intra- and extra-regional trade.
To reduce trade barriers among African countries various trade liberalisation schemes have been launched in African regional economic communities to reduce tariffs and non-tariff barriers, harmonise customs duties, facilitate trade and abolish restrictions on cross-border investments. However, high tariffs are still in place on imports of sensitive goods, while persistent non-tariff barriers, including roadblocks and checkpoints, inadequate customs procedures and inconsistent regulations continue to present serious obstacles to intra-regional trade. Inadequate infrastructure also remains one of the key barriers to intra-Africa trade, investment and private-sector development.
This paper examines intra-African trade in goods and services of three east and southern African countries – Kenya, Zambia and Uganda – through the analysis of ten years of trade data, from 2002 to 2011. The trends seen in these countries provide a brief overview of the current position of intra-African trade, infrastructure and investment, specifically in the east and southern Africa region.
Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.
The author was a tralac intern at the time of writing. tralac’s Internship Programme provides an opportunity for recent graduates to work on trade-related matters, specifically relevant to countries in eastern and southern Africa.
Trade Reports
Governance, trade and statehood in Africa
‘The main reason why Africa’s people are poor is because their leaders have made this choice.’ This is the opening sentence in a recent book about poverty in Africa and what to do about it. The author argues, in a nutshell, that only political and institutional reforms will unlock Africa’s potential in human and natural resources to bring about development, opportunities and hope.
This is not a new message. International institutions and commentators have been arguing for years that African nations have to reform their government institutions and policy procedures in order to be able to tackle poverty and under-development. Better trade governance is, for example, key to reaping the developmental benefits of trade liberalisation.
Many African voices have echoed the same message about better governance, mostly with the more urgent plea for democratic rule at home and respect for human rights. Why then is it not happening – or at least not on a sufficient scale?
Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.