Helpful comments by Ademola Oyejide and Daniel Bach are gratefully acknowledged. Africa’s Regional Integration Index is measuring an Africa on the move. For regional integration in Africa to be a success, Africa’s leaders will have to move beyond grand gestures and abstract visions. Regional integration is a development priority for Africa. 3. Deep trade agreements are important institutional infrastructure for regional integration. They reduce trade costs and define many rules in which economies operate. Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD) Africa’s challenges call for pragmatism and a sense of urgency in action. Since countries are free to negotiate regional economic agreements as they wish, in practice, formal agreements rarely fall neatly into one of these five stages. The African Economic Community (AEC) is an organization of the African Union states. REGIONAL INTEGRATION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA Overview of Recent Developments Lolette Kritzinger-van Niekerk Emmanuel Pinto Moreira December 2002 The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the author(s). According to the perspective of the Yearbook Monitoring Regional Integration in Southern Africa (Volume 8, 2008) Regional integration has been considered an important and successful tool of economic growth and development. Eastern Africa has the largest number of RECs and intergovernmental regional bodies in Africa. More focused and gradual steps that are carefully executed at the domestic level may be the best place to start. However, success in this venture has been slow and marred by delay and stagnation. With no single agreed regional peace and security forum, none plays “the uncontested role of custodian of norms, forum for conflict management, and arbiter of disputes”. Africa’s Regional Integration Arrangements History and Challenges Tesfaye Dinka and Walter Kennes1 September 2007 1 Tesfaye Dinka is with the Global Coalition for Africa and Walter Kennes is with the Development Directorate-General of the European Commission. Several regional agreements function as pillars of the AEC: 43. Looking at the Horn of Africa, some find that it demands “not only a multilateral approach, but also an approach of multiple and overlapping multilateralisms”. The AU is therefore expected to act as the primary vehicle for the advancement of regional integration, and for the promotion of Africa’s integration into the global economy. In some cases, this can lead to confusion in terminology and on the state of regional economic integration of a specific bloc. But the issue of multiple membership remains an obstacle to further regional integration, and unless the counterproductive situation of each sub-region having three to four organisations (except North Africa) is fundamentally changed (Mistry, 2000: 567-8), regionalism in today’s Africa … Signed in 1991 and implemented in 1994, it provides for a staged integration of the regional economic agreements. peaceful region by supporting both public and private sector actors engaged in the regional integration process. If efficiently designed, they can improve policy cooperation across countries, thereby increasing international trade and investment, economic growth and social welfare. Middle East and Africa: AEC. This is partly a function of the fact that, in 2009, President Jacob Zuma refused to entertain the idea of a […] The importance of regional integration is being felt across the continent, as evidenced by African leaders now calling for a free trade area by 2017. 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