Abstract
Regional economic integration has been an important item on the African economic development agenda for many years. The first formal regional integration arrangements (RIAs) were established in colonial times, for example, the world’s oldest operating customs union, the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) in 1910. During the post-colonial period, especially since the 1970s, the number of RIAs has grown sharply to 15 groupings.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The members of SACU are Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland. The SACU Agreement concluded in 1910 incorporated the Union of South Africa, and the British High Commission Territories of Bechuanaland (Botswana), Basutoland (Lesotho) and Swaziland. When Namibia gained independence in 1990 it joined SACU, having previously been included as part of South Africa, which governed South West Africa (Namibia) as a League of Nations protectorate.
- 2.
Economic Commission for Africa, Assessing Regional Integration in Africa, ECA Policy Research Report, 2004, p. 39.
- 3.
The member states of SADC are Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Madagascar was suspended in March 2009 after the ousting of the democratically-elected president, Marc Ravalomanana.
- 4.
COMESA has the following as member states: Angola, Burundi, Comoros, DRC, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Comparing SADC and COMESA membership it is clear that eight countries belong to both RIAs.
- 5.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Economic Development in Africa Report 2009, Strengthening Regional Economic Integration for Africa’s Development, 2009, p. 11.
- 6.
Geda/Kebret, Regional Economic Integration in Africa: A Review of Problems and Prospects with a Case Study of COMESA, Journal of African Economies 17 (2008), p. 357 (381).
- 7.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Economic Development in Africa Report 2009, Strengthening Regional Economic Integration for Africa’s Development, 2009, p. 21.
- 8.
The MFN clause determines that with respect to duties on trade “any advantage, favour, privilege or immunity granted by any contracting party to any product originating in or destined for any other country shall be accorded immediately and unconditionally to the like product originating in or destined for the territories of all other contracting parties”. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1947, Article 1, in: World Trade Organization, The Legal Texts of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations, 1999, p. 423 (424).
- 9.
Robson, The Economics of International Integration, (2nd ed.) 1998, p. 27.
- 10.
The trade data on which the calculations in this and the following paragraph are based were obtained from Comtrade, World exports by provenance and destination, 2009, accessed at http://comtrade.un.org/pb/.
- 11.
SITC 5 is chemicals, 6 is manufactured goods classified by material, 7 is machinery and transport equipment and 8 is miscellaneous manufactured articles.
- 12.
Schiff/Winters, Regional Integration and Development, 2003, p. 101.
- 13.
Schiff/Winters, Regional Integration and Development, 2003, p. 115.
- 14.
Easterly, Can the West save Africa?, Journal of Economic Literature XLVII (2009), p. 378.
- 15.
World Bank, World Development Indicators 2009, 2009; the data can also be accessed at http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/DATASTATISTICS.
- 16.
The data for 1999 was derived from World Bank, World Development Indicators 2000, accessed at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPOVERTY/Res.
- 17.
Robinson, Potential Gains from Infrastructural and Natural Resource Investment Coordination in Africa, in: Teunissen (ed.), Regionalism and the Global Economy The Case of Africa, 1996, p. 68 (68).
- 18.
Collier/Venables, Trade and economic performance: Does Africa’s fragmentation matter? Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics, Cape Town, South Africa, memo 2008.
- 19.
Fields, The Employment Problem in South Africa, Trade & Industry Monitor 16 (2000), p. 3 (4).
- 20.
Landes, Why Are We So Rich and They So Poor?, American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, 80 (1990) 2, p. 1 (6).
- 21.
The support for import substitution was based on the theoretically valid argument of infant industry protection combined with a prevailing attitude of export pessimism. The contention was that the competition of established industries in the developed countries would restrict developing country exports. Also, it was believed that the market of the developed world could not absorb and sustain the growth in labour intensive manufactured imports from the larger developing world. Domestic industries with a potential comparative advantage could “during the temporary period when domestic costs in an industry are above the product’s import price” be given tariff protection, which would be “socially desirable method of financing the investment in human resources needed to compete with foreign producers”. (Baldwin, The Case against Infant-Industry Tariff Protection, Journal of Political Economy 77 (1969), p. 295 (296–7)). Dynamic externalities embodied in learning-by-doing will allow the firm to become competitive during its phase of “infancy”.
- 22.
Bruton, A Reconsideration of Import Substitution, Journal of Economic Literature XXXVI (1998), p. 903 (918).
- 23.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Economic Development in Africa Report 2009 – Strengthening Regional Economic Integration for Africa’s Development, 2009, p. 8.
- 24.
African Development Bank, African Development Report 2000, A Summary, Regional Integration in Africa, 2000, p. 11.
- 25.
President Thabo Mbeki, Launch of the African Union, 9 July 2002: Address by the chairperson of the AU, accessed at http://www.africa-union.org/official_documents/Speeches_&_Statements.
- 26.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Economic Development in Africa Report 2009 – Strengthening Regional Economic Integration for Africa’s Development, 2009, p. 8.
- 27.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Economic Development in Africa Report 2009 – Strengthening Regional Economic Integration for Africa’s Development, 2009, p. 10.
- 28.
A “C” Mandate, in contrast to A and B Mandates, provided for the substantial integration of the area into the country to which the mandate was given.
- 29.
Calculated from data published in World Bank, World Development Indicators 2009.
- 30.
For Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland customs revenue are crucial, especially for Lesotho and Swaziland that receive up to 60 per cent of recurrent revenue from the SACU revenue pool.
- 31.
The 2002 Agreement is reviewed in McCarthy, The Southern African Customs Union in Transition, African Affairs 102 (2003), p. 605 (605–630).
- 32.
Masalila/Motshidisi, Botswana’s exchange rate policy, BIS Paper 17 (2003), p. 122 et seq. (124), accessed at http://www.finforum.co.za/regional/bispap17o.pdf.
- 33.
Oosthuizen, The Southern African Development Community – The organisation, its policies and prospects, 2006, p. 59.
- 34.
The COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Summit of Heads of State and Government, Final Communiqué, 22 October 2008, accessed at http://www.africa-eu.org/…/file/COMESA-EAC-SADC_EN_221008.pdf.
- 35.
First COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Summit, Background Paper, 20 October 2008, p. 2, accessed at http://www.eac.int/trade/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc...
- 36.
COMESA Secretariat, Brief on the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite, accessed at http://about.comesa.int/lang-en/test-blog/view-all-blogs/viewpost/254.
- 37.
Fundira, The SADC FTA Tariff Phase-down Schedule, tralac Newsletter, 27 January 2010, can be obtained from webcontact@tralac.org.
- 38.
Examples of brief discussions of the reasons for the poor performance are McCarthy, Regional Integration – Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem?, in: Ellis (ed.), Africa Now – People Policies Institutions, 1996, p. 211 (219–221) and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Economic Development in Africa Report 2009 – Strengthening Regional Economic Integration for Africa’s Development, 2009, pp. 14 – 16.
- 39.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Economic Development in Africa Report 2009 – Strengthening Regional Economic Integration for Africa’s Development, 2009, p. 39.
- 40.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Economic Development in Africa Report 2009 – Strengthening Regional Economic Integration for Africa’s Development, 2009, p. 38.
- 41.
Naudé/Matthee, The Significance of Transports Costs in Africa, UNU-WIDER, Policy Brief 5, 2007, p. 1 (2).
- 42.
McCord/Sachs/Woo, Understanding African Poverty: Beyond the Washington Consensus to the Millennium Development Goals Approach, in: Teunissen/Akkerman (eds.), Africa in the World Economy – The National, Regional and International Challenges, 2005, p. 23 (37).
- 43.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Economic Development in Africa Report 2009 – Strengthening Regional Economic Integration for Africa’s Development, 2009, p. 38 (Table 8).
- 44.
Collier and Venables argue that large societies can be better informed than small societies because of the existence of scale economies in the commercial media. They mention that in Africa only “South Africa comes anywhere close to providing a market in which specialist journals are viable”; Collier/Venables, Trade and economic performance: Does Africa’s fragmentation matter? Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics, Cape Town, South Africa, memo 2008, p. 30.
- 45.
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1947, Article XXIV.8, in: World Trade Organization, The Legal Texts of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations, 1999, p. 423 (460).
- 46.
What needs to be considered is that in Africa trade taxes are an important source of revenue and consequently the collection and distribution of customs revenue could prove a problem.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
McCarthy, C. (2011). African Regional Economic Integration: Is the Paradigm Relevant and Appropriate?. In: Herrmann, C., Terhechte, J. (eds) European Yearbook of International Economic Law 2011. European Yearbook of International Economic Law(), vol 2. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14432-5_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14432-5_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-14431-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-14432-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawLaw and Criminology (R0)