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Africa Strides Towards Regional Economic Integration
The last year of the 20th century has seen Africa recording significant progress in accelerating regional economic integration, culminating in the establishment of a free trade area by the 20-member Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).
Although the internationalization of national economies is nothing new and the speed of the process and the large number of countries involved are unprecedented, Africa has been excluded in this trend for years.
However, this is no longer the case as more and more African countries have realized that the success or failure of the continent's integration into the global economy will determine its fate in the new millennium.
The COMESA Free Trade Area (FTA), which was launched on October 31, marks a giant step by African countries in moving towards regional economic integration in the face of the challenge of globalization.
With this ambitious project, nine countries of the regional grouping have agreed to end trade tariffs among them and guarantee the free movement of goods and services by the end of 2004, paving the way for all COMESA member states to launch a single currency by 2025.
In early May this year, six members of the Economic Community of West African States also plunged into their drive for sub- regional economic integration. The leaders of Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea and representatives of Gambia, Sierra Leone and Liberia signed an "Accra Declaration on the Second Monetary Zone" and pledged to adopt a single currency by 2004.
They also set economic targets which include controlling inflation under 5 percent, making gross foreign exchange reserves cover at least three months of imports by the end of 2000, increasing these to six months of imports by 2003 and limiting central bank financing of budget deficit by the end of 2000 within 10 percent of the previous year's tax revenue.
The integration process picked up momentum in August when heads of state of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) met in Windhoek, capital of Namibia and set September 1 as the target date for implementing the SADC protocol, the main thrust of which was to create a free trade area in the region.
Under the protocol, products falling in the non-sensitive categories will have been fully liberalized by 2008 and the trade tariffs on sensitive products will be reduced to zero by 2012.
All these developments show that 40 years after the end of colonial rule in most of Africa, the continent which is the birthplace of humanity, home to one eighth of the world's population and a treasure trove of resources, is mobilized to take its destiny into its own hands.
What is more encouraging is that this integration trend in Africa will go unabated. The 1991 Abuja Treaty, which proposes the creation of an African economic community by 2015, has given Africa the framework for its integration into world economy in the new century.
African countries are now sending a clear message to the rest of the world that they can work together to catch up with the pace of globalization by setting their own common agenda and timetables instead of depending on international aid, analysts said.
South African President Thabo Mbeki has repeatedly stressed that African governments must have functioning mechanisms that can allow them to start acting on five levels, namely national, bilateral, regional, continental and global, which are required in the competitive process of the world economy.
Tackling Africa's crisis will require a global initiative, but the only way African can escape marginalization is through self-reliance and regional economic integration, which has become a common understanding of African leaders.
Africa has bright prospects in regional economic integration, economists said. Much of the continent has made significant economic progress in recent years with real gross domestic product growth averaging nearly 4 percent annually in the past five years, a clear improvement from the 1980s and early 1990s.
Besides, the global village has begun to pay attention to Africa's plight and is ready to act, including through a new approach to poverty reduction recently adopted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
Improved world economic environment will also help Africa a lot, as the economies afflicted by the financial crisis over the past few years are recovering, global inflation remains low and worldwide growth, which in 1998 fell to the lowest 2.5 percent, is expected to reach at least 3.5 percent this year
However, as a continent beset by war, poverty, crippling external debt and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Africa is doomed to have a long and tough way to go before fully achieving regional economic integration.
"Unfortunately, we in Africa are faced with conflicts and wars that have ravaged not only the economies of belligerent countries, but also those that are not directly involved," said Zambian President Fredrick Chiluba.
African countries should cement their integration efforts by ensuring political stability, stepping up trade liberalization, opening up economies to competition and deepening their integration into the world economy, therefore giving a decisive boost to their integration drive, economists said.
They also said the goal of African Renaissance in the 21st century will largely depend on the success of the continent's economic integration, which will in turn contribute to the projected annual 7 percent economic growth and halve the number of poor people in Africa by 2015.
History will "record the dawn of the new millennium as the ushering in of an African renaissance", said former IMF president Michel Camdessus optimistically.
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