Abstract
The combination of increasing regionalism, globalization of world production, rapid changes in technology and continued liberalization of world trade, has created a situation of great crisis for Africa which demands fundamental changes in policy and perspectives. For in the evolving world trading situation, the real winners will be those countries which are able to keep pace with technological development, creating and maintaining efficient, competitive production structures which would allow them to respond adequately to changing trends in demand in the world markets. The industrialized countries have responded to this challenge well ahead of the developing countries, especially those of Africa, as they have already adopted new policy measures and strategies. In major industrialized countries, a prominent aspect of this response has been a resurgence of interest in consolidation and further enlargement of their economic space so as, first, to stimulate, protect and support the development of the technological capacities; second, to encourage efficient, competitive industries; and third, to engender greater trade expansion. As noted above, this policy thrust has found concrete expression in the emergence and widening of economic arrangements among developed market-economy countries. ‘Europe 1992’ and NAFTA are two significant examples of such arrangements.
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Notes
Organization of African Unity, Relaunching Africa’s Economic and Social Development: The Cairo Agenda for Action, ECM/2 (xvii) Rev. 4, Cairo, Egypt, March 1995.
H.M.A. Onitiri, ‘Regionalism and Africa’s Development’, study prepared for UNCTAD, November 1995.
Unilag Consultant, The Potential Effects of the 1992 Single European Market on Members of ECOWAS, (Lagos: University of Lagos Press, 1990), p. 46.
For details see S.K.B. Asante, ‘Democracy, Development and Regionalism in Africa’, in S.F. Coetzee, B. Turok, E.P. Beukes (eds), Transition to Democracy: Breaking Out of Apartheid, (Johannesburg: Institute for African Alternatives and Africa Institute of South Africa, 1994), pp. 183–207.
Alan Fowler, ‘The Role of NGOs in Changing State-society relations: Perspectives from Eastern and Southern Africa’, Development Policy Review, Vol. 9, No. 1, (March 1991), p. 53.
G. Hyden, No Shortcuts to Progress: African Development Management in Perspective, (Berkeley, CA.: University of California Press, 1983), p. 119;
R. Frantz, ‘The role of NGOs in Strengthening Civil Society’ in A. Drabek (ed.), ‘Development Alternatives: The Challenge of NGOs’, World Development, suppl. 15, (Autumn 1987), p. 121;
World Bank, Sub-Saharan Africa: From crisis to sustainable growth, (Washington DC: The World Bank, 1989), p. 61.
S.K.B. Asante, The Political Economy of Regionalism in Africa: A Decade of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), (New York: Praeger, 1986), pp. 200–5.
ECA, African Charter for Popular Participation in Development and Transformation, E/ECA/CM.14/11, Arusha, Tanzania, February 1990.
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© 1997 S. K. B. Asante
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Asante, S.K.B. (1997). Conclusion: Time for Action. In: Regionalism and Africa’s Development. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25779-9_8
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