Of Libya, CENSAD and...Which REC for South Sudan?

 

Whither the future of CEN-SAD?

The Community of Sahel-Saharan States was established in 1998 by the late Colonel Qaddafi. After the rationalization of the regional economic communities in 2006, it became an AU-REC – that is one of the eight RECs mandated and recognized by the African Union. It has twenty-eight members, and Ghana is a member. 

Despite many meetings that had taken place and a fully-functioning website on http://www.censad.org, the uprising that started in Libya in March threw a huge spanner in the works of the organisation, effectively throwing the regional grouping out of sync with the other RECs at its base in Tripoli. Regrettably, the conspicuous absence of the African Union itself on the future of CENSAD has not helped dispel the notion that the AU is nothing more than a “toothless” bulldog. 

The passing of Qaddafi will effectively take the wind out of the sails of CENSAD, probably throwing all the good work – including the Great Green Wall being built along the sub-region to protect the region from climate change; as well as the establishment of a free-trade area of ECOWAS-UEMOA-CENSAD/ECOWAS-CENSAD/ECCAS along the likes of the SADC-COMESA-EAC tripartite free trade area, which was mooted in 2008.

Going forward, I would expect to see the AU taking serious the need to engage the National Transitional Council in Libya on their commitments to the African Union. This would include discussions on Libya and where it stands on the establishment of the AU-mandated and Tripoli-hosted African Investment Bank, as well as the state of play of CEN-SAD, and how it can be factored into discussions of Africa’s ongoing discussions over Africa’s integration.

South Sudan – which REC to belong to?

South Sudan might have slipped off the radar of news—not because it is not important, but other hot issues might naturally have tipped it off. Still, what has not been making the rounds too much has been the regional economic community to which South Sudan should belong. Given the location of that country, one cannot take it for granted that they would necessarily want to go with their Northern counterpart—and to the RECs is no exception.

There is no mechanism that can predict that South Sudan will want to become member of the East Africa Community or the IGAD. And what of COMESA? This is an important debate that African media practitioners – aware of the utility and increasing assertiveness of the RECs – might be ruminating over on the continent.

Although there have been major developments around South Sudan and its membership of some of these RECs, the point I am making here is about the absence of a debate in much of the African media. Going forward, African media practitioners, including here in Ghana, should move beyond the stage of talking about other AU member states only when they’re, at best, embroiled in conflict and/or at worst, are headline news over at the BBC!

You might be happy to know that South Sudan was made a member of COMESA at the 15th Comesa Heads of State and Government summit on 14^th October in Malawi. Furthermore, on 17 October, South Sudan President General Salva Kiir confirmed that his country has started on the application process to become a member of the East African Community (EAC).

**this piece was culled from my Wednesday column for Ghana's "Business and Financial Times" newspaper, which is called "The Accidental ECOWAS and AU Citizen"--from: http://www.thebftonline.com/bft_subcat_linkdetails.cfm?prodcatID=6&tblNewsCatID=63&tblNewsID=9788 . More also on http://african-union-citizen.blogspot.com/2011/10/hot-issues-on-au-needing-popular.html

In 2009, in his capacity as a “Do More Talk Less Ambassador” of the 42^nd Generation—an NGO that promotes and discusses Pan-Africanism--Emmanuel gave a series of lectures on the role of ECOWAS and the AU in facilitating a Pan-African identity. Emmanuel owns "Critiquing Regionalism" (http://www.critiquing-regionalism.org). Established in 2004 as an initiative to respond to the dearth of knowledge on global regional integration initiatives worldwide, this non-profit blog features regional integration initiatives on MERCOSUR/EU/Africa/Asia and many others. You can reach him on ekbensah@ekbensah.net / Mobile: 0268.687.653.

ECOWAS-COMESA Relations Make Progress

When the visiting ambassador from the East African Community, Julius Onen, to the ECOWAS Commission on 24 July 2007 called ECOWAS the putative "mother of all communities", some might have believed this to be a rather bombastic statement, but when I had the priviledge of interviewing--on the sidelines of a mining workshop, hosted by TWN-Africa, AU Commission, ECOWAS, and the UNECA--Professor Ndongo of the West Africa Civil Society Forum(WACSOF)and him having disclosed to me that even without Dr.Chambas as Head of ECOWAS (as he now goes off to Brussels to head the ACP Secretariat), the ECOWAS machine would still run smoothly, I got the impression that despite the numerous challenges still dogging ECOWAS, it must be getting something right.

So when I read that no less than the Secretariat of COMESA was entertaining some ECOWAS chaps over at their Secretariat, I as more than chuffed about the potential collaboration that can come out of that.

In tones reminiscent of the collaboration I have referred to many a time on this blog, it was interesting to read that the two RECS are keen to strengthen their Regional Business Councils; "Women in Business, Agricultural Development and Food Security, Trading for Peace, Customs Issues, the Common External Tariff and Free Trade Areas..." among many other areas.

The article maintains:

At the end of the visit, an Aide Memoire was signed between the two sides sealing a commitment to collaborate in areas identified during the visit to enhancing private sector development and overall regional integration. The COMESA Director for Trade, Customs and Monetary Affairs, Mr.. Francis Mangeni, signed on behalf of the COMESA Secretariat, while Mr. Alfred Braimah signed on behalf of the ECOWAS Commission.

I guess seeing more of this is a sure way of facilitating a more progressive outlook on regional integration!

COMESA To Regionalise Power, and Ease Trade Barriers

The relatively small weight
of intraregional trade in Africa, despite the existence of several (and frequently overlapping) RTAs, is
largely due to their production structure and the composition of their exports, as well as the presence
of non-tariff barriers and infrastructural constraints.
--(UNCTAD Trade and Development Report 2007 overview--p.XV)

Well, fancy that! The 19-member COMESA is also looking closely at how to resolve the serious lacuna within regional integration projects in Africa--that of efforts to promote intra-regional trade.

To this end, COMESA is looking more specifically at the small-scale trade sector--a long time in coming for MANY of the RECS--and how cross-border trade can be facilitated for them:

Speaking in Nairobi after holding a series of meetings with traders in East Africa to discuss detailed plans of implementing a COMESA Customs Union, due for launch in 2008, Mwencha said the trade bloc was also tackling various setbacks to trade.

My superficial reading of the review of the latest UNCTAD report on regional integration interprets some of these "infrastructural constraints" to be non-tax barriers that frustrate the efforts of traders across the region in their cross-border trading activities.

The article maintains:

These non-tax barriers include rejection of goods at border posts or delayed clearances.

A solution to this is for COMESA Secretariat launch what it calls a "simplified trade regime, which will facilitate cross-border trade for small-scale traders for consignments not exceeding US$500".

I don't think anyone can say this is a bad idea.

For me, ideas like these are only meaningful if other regionalisms can learn from them, and obtain synergies that can create a climate of understanding on how to make regional integration more palpable and real for the average COMESA-ian.

Meanwhile, what I intoned some posts ago on the regionalisation of power and energy projects has almost come to pass, in the sense that COMESA is promising that within the next few years, power shortage in the region will be a thing of the past.

This is because currently in the region -- as COMESA Secretary-General Erastus Mwencha said -- there are regular power shortages that can be attributed to Southern Africa's economic growth, with increasing demand out-stripping supply:

"If you look at the Southern Africa power pool, right now it is only Malawi and Tanzania that have not been connected. The Eastern Africa
power pool has not done as much as the Southern Africa power pool. In the next three to four years we should have the entire region interconnected which would be a tremendous..."

COMESA expects this regionalisation of power to happen by 2010/2011.

Reflections on Regional Integration(II/III): COMESA Moves Forward...Pan-African Integration?

As Africa sits a day or two away from the 34th celebration of efforts at African unity, it becomes very timely that positive and constructive decisions would have taken place in Kenya at the 12th COMESA Summit.

The two-day meeting has yielded some very positive outcomes, which include:

the approval of a Common External Tariff(CET), which paves the way for the transformation of a FTA into a unified Customs Union in 2008

the exhortation by Kenyan premier Kibaki for COMESA to "reach out to regional economic blocs such as the EAC and SADC to consolidate integration"

the realisation that there need to be common understanding and positions in regional trade negotiations critical to a successful engagement with the regional blocs

Haven't we been here before? What of the African Economic Community? Is that not supposed to facilitate outreach towards the other regional blocs in Africa.

My understanding had always been that that would be the framework. Anything else is this side of reinventing the wheel, when it's clearly fixed on a timeline, and already in motion.

COMESA will be 13 years this December, and as is reputed to be the biggest African regional grouping in the sense that it groups

20 countries with about 400 million people and a combined gross domestic product in excess of 180 billion U.S. dollars.

Its members are Angola, Burundi, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Libya, Seychelles, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.



That's basically encompassing quite some countries from IGAD; COMESA; SADC and EAC countries. Already an over-lapping is inevitable, as has been discussed several times at international fora, and so I would have found it very interesting to have seen some talk of harmonising the over-lapping.

Failing that, the outreach that Kibaki talks about is all well and good, but how would that be operationalised, in the sense that how would it work practically without interfering with existing mechanisms? Would it come in the form of SADC-COMESA/SADC-EAC/IGAD-EAC/IGAD-SADC/etc percolations, expressed through a bilateral arrangement predicated on economics and trade, or something else? Maybe cultural? Maybe political.

It is clear that on regional integration in Africa, much needs to be done. There is talk that the next AU summit to be held here in Accra, Ghana, will discuss the putative United States of Africa. It promises to be an event worth monitoring, and RegionsWatch shall definitely be there to give you some insights.

Over and beyond that, though, it is very interestings--albeit predictable--that Kenya should be talking about a regional integration strategy predicated on conflict prevention and conflict resolution. That's an idea that's been chewed and spat out several times in West Africa, and I do hope Kenya will consider some liasing with ECOWAS on this.

This is because, as many know about the conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone, these conflicts in the sub-region compelled the region to beef up its knowledge and experience on conflict, to the extent of establishing centres on the training of conflict prevention, such as the Ghana-based Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre.

All that said, I maintained Kenya's decision is "predictable", because, as it explained some posts ago, the facilitation of regional security is an important pillar in the strategy for Kenya's perspective on regional integration. Important, because it sees, for example, the accession of Rwanda and Burundi into the East African Community as a way of ensuring that possible inter-necine conflicts originating from those two countries are seriously clamped down on. If the regional security imperative is in place, it will prevent any possible spillovers into the region, of which Kenya is part of.

Examples of Kenya having been the honest broker is what Vice President Moody Awori listed:

Kenya which successful[ly] mediated Somalia and Sudan peace processes two years ago will continue to spearhead regional conflict resolution efforts to bring peace and stability in the region to promote trade and investment

He further noted:

"Kenya's commitment to proactive engagement in seeking security and stability in the region is informed by the essence for an environment that can facilitate our people to engage in both international and trans-border trade which is a prerequisite to our quest for economic development,"

He couldn't have said it better. To boot, he compounds all this heavy talk by arguing what COMESA should begin to do as far as conflict prevention and management is concerned:

COMESA should streamline its program of conflict prevention in its trade regimes with the aim of avoiding trade and investment related conflicts

Who needs the EU when Africans themselves can make spurious ties to their regional integration?

How a program of conflict prevention and management can be streamlined with trade and investment is beyond me.

Any takers?

Have a good AU day!

Reflections on Regional Integration(I)

It's Africa Union Day this Friday 25th May. As such, it is celebrated as a holiday in all AU countries.

In preparation for that celebration I deemed it incumbent on my part to do some reflection on how far regional integration has gone on the continent, by way of what the media is writing about it.

The first article I came across, entitled African integration can't skip its five powerhouses is an interesting article that spends less time talking about how and why there are five powerhouses, which actually boils down to four: South Africa; Democratic Republic of Congo; Sudan; Nigeria.

This, in theory, is not a bad idea, but the writer does little justice to the explanation as to why these are the ocuntries except to generally say they have:

big populations

(massive) economic resources

status as political and economic hub(s)

massive unexploited resources

sizeable skilled knowledge population

All in all, if it's not big, it's big and bad; or big and badly managed--except when it's South Africa, which he describes as:

South Africa is Africa`s powerhouse in terms of industrial development and technologically skilled population.

With its population standing at over 40 million and its relatively pronounced international posture, South Africa is a force to reckon with in the continent and can, therefore, help the continent look for viable integration solutions.

What?

Since when has South Africa been instrumental in the resolution of erstwhile conflicts in, say, the ECOWAS sub-region? Have we forgotten that it was Ghana's premier Kwame Nkrumah that was even, as his detractors maintain, helping fight apartheid, whilst along with Nasser, and others spearheaded what was then the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which has evolved to become the African Union?

Either way, my major point is the aggrandizement of South Africa as a country that has the ideas and tools for how African integration can be done is not just spurious and pie-in-the-sky, but ridiculous. It is a rare "regional integrationist" that should advance such a notion, without having an agenda of sucking up to the powerhouse of the SADC region.

The elaboration of Nigeria, for example, is so poor and shoddy it's not funny. Little time is spent on explaining why it is the political and economic hub of West Africa. Were the author to be pressed, I am sure he would first cite the size of the population (140 million), and conveniently forget that Nigeria has a precedent in being the only ECOWAS country to have launched a satellite!

And much more besides. But in the interests of time, let me just press on.

I have talked about the IGAD country Sudan before, and concede very much it has a challenge of reconciling its oil-rich status with economic development. I would have expected this article to have transcended the issue of Darfur a bit and explained what some of the constraints on the country are.

DRC is a good point, but, yet again, little explanation. It is only South Africa that glows.

In his discussion of the regional powerhouses (the "regional" are mine), he mentions SADC; ECOWAS; COMESA. I would have expected a bit more about the Africa Economic Community, which the UN's regional commission of Africa, UNECA, elaborates on here:

First of all, the Africa Economic Community: "article 6 of the Treaty lays down a timetable for the process of integration, or the creation of Africa Economic Community (AEC) to be carried out over a period of 34 years (1994-2027), in 6 different stages of different duration".

Africa is making some progress in its attempts to integrate. However, the results are mixed. Notable progress has been made in the areas of trade, communications, macroeconomic policies, and transportation. The West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), the East African Community (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) have all made significant progress in trade liberalization and facilitation. In the area of free movement of people, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has made remarkable strides. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community (EAC) have progressed in the area of infrastructure. For peace and security, ECOWAS and SADC have made commendable.
from:http://www.uneca.org/integration/numero1/opinion.asp

If we backtrack just a bit, we see that the regional blocs mentioned under the ambit of the AEC are: ECOWAS; SADC; UEMOA; COMESA; EAC. I would agree with the UNECA that these are the five regional powerhouses. Though, I find UEMOA less reliable in terms of grand regional integration projects, it is true that as far as economic regional integration goes, by way of the CFA, it is way up there.

Suffice-to-say, our learned reporter needs to do some more research!