Regionalism has played a vital role in fostering peace and security in Africa over the past few decades.

However, fully exploiting its potential for economic development remains a challenge as evidenced, for example, by the prevalence of weak production and export structures in African countries, the increase in the number of poor people on the continent, and the low shares of regional trade in Africa’s total trade.

This paper argues that making regional integration work for Africa requires that African governments change their approach to economic integration and in particular shift emphasis from the current model of integration, which focuses mostly on trade reforms and processes and institutions of integration, to an alternative approach − Transformative Regionalism − in which regional integration promotes and also ensures progress in building productive capacities and achieving structural transformation for sustained development.

The paper identifies the key elements of Transformative Regionalism, examines the extent to which the current approach to integration adopted by African regional economic communities (RECs) are consistent with transformative regionalism, and also highlights other critical elements of a credible policy package to promote regional integration in Africa.

These include enhancing implementation of existing programmes and action plans, refocusing the role of the RECs on the goal of economic integration, doing away with false dichotomies that often cloud the debate on development in Africa, and recognising as well as exploiting the vital role of industrial policy and consumer behaviour in promoting regional integration.

The aim of the Trade and Poverty Paper Series is to disseminate the findings of research work on the inter-linkages between trade and poverty and to identify policy options at the national and international levels on the use of trade as a more effective tool for poverty eradication. The opinions expressed in papers under the series are those of the authors and are not to be taken as the official views of the UNCTAD Secretariat or its member states. The designations and terminology employed are also those of the authors.