Foreword

The rationale of the Building Bridges programme is that there are several well-known challenges that Africans face as continental citizens but there has been slow progress in addressing them. These include, for example, continental climate change issues, gender equity issues, government accountability to African economic integration.

In many of these instances the solutions to the problem are well known by experts and policymakers, and often even by a broader population. But those tasked with resolving these problems either do not have the incentives or the resources to do this effectively.

On this basis, the GSDPP felt it would be a good idea to bring together experts, policymakers, young leaders and other interested groupings, through the collaborative platform of Building Bridges, in a series of meetings to try to take forward our collective understanding of key issues and build new networks.

Indeed, we feel that to a significant extent, the process is an important part of the solution. The challenge we decided to engage with was: how do we build coalitions to support reform and to neutralise the forces standing in the way of reform?

African economic integration was the first of these problems that we tackled. While we should not underestimate the progress that has been made towards economic integration in Africa, we need to understand why we are not doing better. Economic integration is part of moving forward, not only to economic prosperity, but also to greater cultural understanding, and moving away from the xenophobia that we have experienced from time to time.

First, we brought the experts together. Then the young leaders, then we convened some of the more influential policymakers, and finally we held a series of meetings around the continent in an effort to build momentum for reform coalitions.

In East Africa we partnered with the Uongozi Institute to bring together experts, policymakers, young leaders and the business community; in West Africa we met with the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and a range of young leaders, experts and policymakers around culture and integration; and in Southern Africa, working with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), we engaged on how we can use the measurement of integration as a means to enhance accountability.

In this report we bring together some of our findings that reflect on the theme. But the lasting legacy, we believe, is in bringing key members of the reform coalition together, and helping to build a network that will help drive integration forward.

The leadership of Thandika Mkandawire and Trevor Manuel was indispensable, and our partnerships with Uongozi, CODESRIA and ECA were heartwarming and brilliantly effective. The participation of all of the experts, young leaders, policymakers, business people, artists and administrators made all of our preparatory work worthwhile.

We hope that discussion at these events can help us to take the project of regional integration forward – to revive it and identity its weak points and to engage with those we think should be accounting more effectively for its progress. We believe we have strengthened African networks for progressive reform. This report will give you a sense of our journey.

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African Economic Integration

This report provides an overview of the events convened in the first Building Bridges programme cycle, focused on the theme of African economic integration, attended by 140 participants from over 20 African countries, and draws out some of the key threads from these conversations, informed by background think pieces, presentations, workshop reports and transcripts.

Regional integration has long been a key economic and political ambition in Africa. The formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 provided a major cross-continental push towards the vision of a truly independent, integrated African continent, with more integrated and larger markets, and a shared experience of what it is to be African.

Fifty years later, the African Union (AU) launched Agenda 2063, The Africa We Want – a long-term development strategy and timeline for accelerating implementation of existing continental frameworks towards this goal, including the 1980 Lagos Plan of Action, the 1991 Abuja Treaty, the 2001 New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the 2003 Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), the 2008 Action Plan for Accelerated Industrial Development in Africa (AIDA), the 2007 Minimum Integration Programme and the 2010 Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA).

Despite the long history of high-level commitments to the overarching goal of integration, there is still slow progress and on-going debate around definitions, strategies, diagnostics, jurisdiction and desired outcomes. In the past, Africa was held together by the common need for liberation. Economic integration and transformation require a consistent impetus to drive change, and countries across the continent are at differing levels of development and governance.

From a public policy perspective, integration poses challenges, both at a national level and in regions comprised of diverse nation states.

The benefits of regional integration at a domestic level need to be understood and popularised. While its benefits to investors are understood, explaining its benefits to citizens needs more effort. Economic integration is part of the process forward, not only to sustainable development and inclusive growth, but also to building bridges between people and countries, and moving away from the xenophobia, conflict and violence that continue to plague significant parts of the continent.

Africa’s growing population offers a powerful engine for advancing growth, employment and intra-African trade. ECA estimates that successful establishment of a Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA), for which a target date of 2017 was set in the Abuja Treaty, would result in intra-African trade rising to 22% of total African trade, and add about US$1 trillion to the global economy, and African living standards will rise accordingly.

• If the economic benefits are so clear, why does African integration, particularly as manifested in thriving cross-border trade between sovereign nations, remain elusive?

• What are the most pressing obstacles to integration in Africa?

• What are the most important levers – and challenges – that we, and African leaders, need to engage with to promote and achieve economic integration?

• What are the priorities for a research agenda about economic integration on the African continent?

• How can scholarly research on regional integration have a real impact in the world of politics?

These were some of the critical questions underlying the adoption of African economic integration as the first overarching theme to launch the Building Bridges programme, using the framework of political economy to identify and discuss key challenges and opportunities, the forces favouring and opposing reform, and strategies to promote integration.