BimANORI
“Watching the world, watching our Regions”
Number 1—21 August, 2006
The RegionsWatch BIMANORI News features selected news, with links to further information about regional integration efforts worldwide. It is emailed free-of-charge to subscribers twice a month. Comments and suggestions are welcome to power2regions@yahoo.co.uk. You can find these summaries posted simultaneously on http://regionswatch.blogspot.com
ARTICLES
- Legislative instruments / conventions / protocols
- comesa must go: mboweni
- asean charter to be completed at its 40th anniversary: indonesian fm
- sadc meet to dis
- Forums—social and otherwise
- ecowas youth forum delegates lament inaccessibility to funds
- Trends
- An alternative to a failed mercosur
- geopolitical diary: a new iranian pole?
- the uncertain fate of mercosur
- sadc progresses
- caricom vote seals top oas post for
- brazil, portugal foster cooperation mercosur-eu
- eac forces in joint military exercises
- Communication strategies
- eac unknown in
- asem still lacks visibility after 10 years
- Regional institutions
- sadc parley in the offing
- wama
Dear RegionsWatcher,
Nature abhors a vacuum, and so when regional organisations go making ostensibly grandiose claims that they will create a single currency, seek economic convergence, or establish an army, it is easy to speculate that these are not articulated outside a context.
In this first-ever edition of RegionsWatch’s BIMANORI, we bring you, in keeping with the tag of “Making Regions Accountable”, a whole, different perspective of the filter through which to examine regional integration efforts.
“Bimanori” (Bi-monthly Analysis on Regional Integration), seeks to focus on news on five particular aspects of regional integration:
- Legislative instruments / conventions / protocols
- Forums—social and otherwise
- Trends
- Communication strategies
- Regional institutions
All these five, in some way or another, lend themselves to a degree of accountability. You can read more about it on the RegionsWatch blog: http://regionswatch.blogspot.com.
For the sake of reference, you can find the excerpts for the articles below in each edition. In addition, we will attempt to bring you a context upon which a lot of the trends and developments are predicated. It is RegionsWatch’s earnest belief that by looking at contexts, one begins to provide a rationale as to the trajectory of the regional integration agreements.
In this case, there are three important contexts. The first is the debacle of the collapse of the WTO agreement in July; the second is the regional crisis of
Understanding Regional Integration…
I think it’s fair to say that regional integration is often rendered to a level of abstraction that it is quite understandable why citizens, as in the East African Community case, have no idea what it stands for, but a bunch of regional ministers meeting every now and then.
So when
It’s important to understand that it is one thing to have an ineffective communications policy even when you are doing good work, and quite another to have one for the sake of having one. When one reads how ASEM, (Asia-Europe Meeting) still after ten years, is considered irrelevant, or how the Organisation of American States (OAS) is being seen as “an increasingly irrelevant institution”, you begin to wonder whether it is not better to focus on transforming the regional institution instead of lamenting over how it never became part of the consciousness of those citizens to whom it was supposed to mean something.
…and pruning it
Truth be told, it is RegionsWatch’s view that considering the gamut and proliferation of regional partnerships, it might be better to streamline processes within existing and well-established regional organisations, such as ASEAN; MERCOSUR; ECOWAS; SADC; COMESA; Andean Community; etc and look at how to fast-track particular processes on, say, a regional economic currency. In addition to this gargantuan effort could be the discarding, or possible disbanding, of other regional arrangements that are merely predicated on economic development, or a mere consideration to subsume them into these well-established ones.
One understands that this is a view that would not be palatable to those keen to dispense free-trade medication, but it is definitely something that is very much food for thought. The absence of an alternative like this would only create, especially in the context of the failed talks of the WTO, a free-for-all by the QUAD (comprising the same usual suspects of Canada, the EU; US and Japan) and otherwise, for bilateral deals increasingly done on the sly, and predicated almost exclusively on economic development.
Jabbing the Hegemon Hard
Speaking of which, when CARICOM showed two fingers to the US over its selection of the Socialist Chilean Interior Minister Jose Miguel Insulza, it was doing more than taking a gentle swipe at the US; it was also underscoring the importance of the OAS removing itself from the growing perception of irrelevance, and moving it towards what the article calls “a political approach”, rather than one solely based on economic development—as is the approach former aspirants Francisco Flores, former president of El Salvador; and Mexico’s foreign minister Luis Ernesto Derbez [who was in the infamous WTO green room in Cancun!! Work out the mathematics!], respectively, would have adopted.
Other than the economics, however, what is clear is that when it comes to regional integration projects, a lot of work needs to be done to move the regional entities forward. Be it in terms of creating a charter for it (as is the case of ASEAN as it looks forward to celebrating forty years of its existence); be it by way of an investment protocol for SADC; or a redefinition of a clear and present putative nuclear power as a regional hard-man, such as Iran, in the Middle East.
It is therefore sad to see what, in effect, is a vilification of some countries in the Latin American region, such as Venezuela—simply because Chavez has been uttering some leftist ideology that does not seem to gel with the proponents of free trade. That he has been publicly aligning himself with
Then again, he is far from the only one to mix with Castro. CARICOM recently threw its support behind Castro, warning “ill-wishers not to “create problems for the Cuban people at this time.”” Things are definitely happening in the region; and it’s easy to speculate that the big US Of A might not be too keen on these developments and trends.
Political Spaces, Tectonic Shifts
If we take a look at the trends and developments that this newsletter alone has thrown up, we can begin to see an interesting set of tectonic shifts that might run counter to the convention of ‘practising’ regional integration.
First of all, with COMESA being asked to disband by none other than SADC, is an interesting development that is worth watching. Worth watching because
If we forget for a second the fact that a lot of band-wagoning happens when conflicts like these surface—and usually in favour of the “big guy” (South Africa)—we can already see that it was going to be inevitable that a lot of the neighbouring countries would prefer allying themselves with the de facto hegemon, as expressed by the decision of some to tie their currencies to the weightier South African rand, than ally themselves to the ostensibly-ailing COMESA.
Already, it’s not looking good, with COMESA having lost
This calls into question whether negotiations on the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) are going to foster such inter-regional conflicts over which country ought to be considered the hegemon to the degree that, say, ECOWAS will begin to ask questions about the relevance of UEMOA or the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). That referred to above could be a sign of things to come. What’s more, it might go to underscore the degree to which the EU, as a quintessential economic actor, has managed, to some extent, to foster a divide-and-rule strategy over the Africa Union’s Africa Economic Community that is supposed to underpin the regional entities already-established on the continent.
Speaking of conflicts, at the time of writing, there has been an effective “cessation of hostilities” between
Seeing as nature just loves a vacuum, one country that has already made headline-news is keen to promote itself as the new regional entity in the Middle East:
The article suggests that
This new development has sent the Saudis scattering like rats in the woodpile to try to steer
Questions Remain
Chavez has talked about MERCOSUR forming an army, and creating energy pacts within the grouping; as well as buying out national debt so as to form strategic alliances.
There are claims that MERCOSUR is unnecessarily politicising itself, especially with Chavez’s articulations that are considered as ‘ranting’. There are also queries over
One article, by Sam Logan for the Swiss-based ISN Security Watch, entitled An Alternative to a Failed MercoSur{sic}, is really about how
In the final analysis, it is in RegionsWatch’s view not ‘absurd’ as claimed by one commentator, for MERCOSUR to have an army—because it is not practised “even in the EU”! The West African grouping of ECOWAS during the Liberian conflict of the 1990s established ECOMOG (ECOWAS Monitoring Group) initially on an ad-hoc basis. It was set up to respond to a sub-regional imperative of conflict resolution for the Liberian conflict. It is now being subsumed under the much-talked about African Economic Community (AEC) as part of the established regional grouping’s (of ECOWAS, SADC, IGAD) standby force.
That there are two good articles castigating MERCOSUR suggests very strongly that something monstrous is afoot. Especially with
Finally, as regards ASEM, with ASEAN and APEC there, is there really a need for ASEM?
Happy Watching!
RegionsWatch
Making Regions Accountable
- comesa must go: mboweni
from: http://www.southerntimes.com.na/headview.php?cid=137
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) has been called upon to disband to give way to the emergence of a Southern African Development Community (SADC) monetary union, with South African Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni lambasting the continent’s biggest trading bloc for being an obstacle to the attainment of a common currency in SADC
- asean charter to be completed at Its 40th anniversary: indonesian fm
from: http://english.people.com.cn/200608/09/eng20060809_291360.html
The ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Charter is expected to be completed and ratified at the 40th anniversary of ASEAN on August 8, 2007, Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Hassan Wirajuda said.
- sadc meet to dis
from: http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2006/08/10/72137.html
Finance Ministers from the Southern African development Community (SADC) next week meet in
The
- ecowas youth forum delegates lament inaccessibility to funds
from: http://www.observer.gm/enews/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5445&Itemid=33
Youth delegates participating in the ongoing Second Edition of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) Youth Forum have lamented difficulty in accessing funds to support youth entrepreneurship.
- An alternative to a failed mercosur
from: http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=16504
In a region where loud voices of integration shout over a reality of failed trade policies, Chile’s alternative to access to the Pacific may be a viable solution.
- geopolitical diary: a new iranian pole?
from: http://www.readingtheworld.com/index.php?p=498
The Iranians have taken their desire to emerge as the regional hegemon to the next level. Emboldened by the direction of the Lebanese crisis, and backed by its Arab (mostly Shiite) allies,
- the uncertain fate of mercosur
from: http://independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1783
Several days ago,
- sadc progresses
from: http://www.gov.bw/cgi-bin/news.cgi?d=20060811&i=SADC_progresses
Executive Secretary Tomaz Salomao of SADC said at a press briefing in
- caricom vote seals top oas post for
from: http://www.mycaribbeannews.com/politics/050404b.html
In a defeat for the White House, the socialist interior minister of
- brazil, portugal foster cooperation mercosur-eu
from : http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B7E24FA3D-5C5E-4861-A0A9-6BFF8B9F6B0E%7D)&language=EN
The issue topped the agenda of the meeting between Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, at the
- eac forces in joint military exercises
from: http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2006/08/10/72153.html
East African Community (EAC) defence forces will carry out a joint disaster management exercise in
from: http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={F0FB1A5B-EF49-4E0F-AAB2-5832CF1390B0})&language=EN
The protectionist measure is a harsh blow to
- eac unknown in
from: http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/17/512858
MANY people in
from: http://www.angolapress-angop.ao/noticia-e.asp?ID=457242
Tripoli, Libya, 07/20 - Officials in charge of communication of the Community of Sahelian-Saharan States (CEN-SAD) convened here Tuesday to discuss the modernisation of the technical communication facilities and tariff systems among member states.
- asem still lacks visibility after 10 years
from: http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news_business.php?id=210388
- sadc parley in the offing
from: http://www.mmegi.bw/2006/August/Monday7/10051235861762.html
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) will soon have a Parliament, Shoshong MP Duke Lefhoko told a press conference on Friday
- wama
from: http://www.thepoint.gm/headlines1013.htm
The process of integrating the economies and currencies of West African States is in full gear, as the West African Monetary Agency (WAMA), set up in 1992 to facilitate this process, has embarked on a vigorous sensitization campaign by organising seminars in all the fifteen ECOWAS member countries on a regular basis
from: http://www.angolapress-angop.ao/noticia-e.asp?ID=459615
Opening the ministerial meeting Thursday, he reaffirmed his administration`s determination to continue to treat health as "a national priority along with education, food and nutrition."
DISCLAIMER:
The RegionsWatch BIMANORI is a fortnightly newsletter issued by RegionsWatch News Service. Its purpose is to circulate selected information on regional integration, efforts, trends and developments worldwide, through the filter of regional integration initiatives and developments that facilitate accountability.
Subscribers are welcome to, and encouraged, to contribute information.
BIMANORI is a strictly non-commercial and educational service for individuals, students, and interested parties active in the field of international trade, advocacy, and development.
Subscribers can always request full versions of articles from RegionsWatch by sending an email to power2regions@yahoo.co.uk
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* ekbensah@yahoo.co.uk
* ek_bensah@yahoo.co.uk
* http://ekbensah.blogspot.com
* http://ekbensahinghana.blogspot.com
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