Reflections on Regional Integration: Kenichi Ohmae Makes his Stance on Region States

Irishman Eamonn Moran is a nice guy whom I found on facebook last year. He also believes in the power of the State. Back in 2002, when he and I were working as colleagues at a Brussels-based NGO, we had many discussions about neo-liberalism and the role of the State on countering it. His thesis on that genre was a good read. I guess I waxed so lyrical about regional integration that he decided to shut me up by giving me this book, which I have captured in the inset picture. The book in question is Kenichi Ohmae's The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies, which I have only recently begun to read after a good six years!!

In any event, I think it's about time that book featured highly on this blog. The contribution that it offers is as controversial as it is interesting. His stance is clear: he believes the State is being rolled back, and in classic neo-lioberalist theory, he feels that it is a good thing. I am inclined to disagree, but I think it never hurts reading the other side.

So what I've resolved to do is that over the next couple of posts, sprinkle summaries of the chapter of the book, among regular reporting of what's happening in the other regional groupings. To that end, I can offer a perspective that engages in the thinking around the discipline of regional integration.

New trends
The last article hints at a new thinking on regional integration, and I realise the more I read, the more questions arise. These include:

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1. Is it possible to conceive of a Committee of Regions à l'Africaine that will cater for the needs of all those regions in Africa?
2. Will twinning African regions help facilitate a more efficient regional integration?
3. Are micro-regions the way to go?
4. How do I reconcile some of the new trends around regional integration with the need to develop the Un Regional commissions?
5. What about my three-tier proposal on regional integration where:

First, there needs to be identification of imperatives of each region. Simply put, what is unique about a particular region that that region can capitalise on to bring to bear in the conception of an AU government? So, we can say, for example, that ECOWAS's sub-regional imperative is that of conflict prevention/resolution /management, given its experience with Liberia/Sierra Leone/and the instrumentality of ECOMOG. SADC's might be a different one; the EAC's might be on, say, regional infrastructure. For example, § A paper from UNU-CRIS cites that: “the AU has been the first regional organization to establish a clear relationship with the UN as it is consciously aspiring to closely coordinate, if not integrate, its mission planning and execution of peace and security action with the prevailing structures/plans of the UN”.



Secondly, there needs to be comparative approaches. By this I mean what best practices are there from each of these regional communities that can best be put to good use in any conception of an AU government? This means that ECOWAS's peacekeeping/peace enforcement wing ECOMOG could be analysed for use in a regional organisation like SAARC that has experienced problems over Kashmir/India and Pakistan. What is it that ECOMOG has been able to do in enforcing peace that SAARC can learn from?


Thirdly, there needs to be collaboration, as exemplified by the donation of $1m by the Arab League to the African Union's peacekeeping forces.

I have further arguments that can be elaborated on in later entries, but for now, these three points remain the crux of my personal vision of an AU government. Even then, ramifications of these elements remain, and can be very much expounded upon.

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Back to Ohmae's point in his introduction, he talks about how the end of history was a false idea, and that the "voiceless" and "invisible"..."have entered with a vengeance, and they have demands--economic demands--to make." The question though is to whom should the demands be made? He believes that people turn to the UN, which is nothing more than "a collection of nation states", but also other regional groupings like OPEC/G7/ASEAN/APEC/NAFTA/EU. For him, all these are nothing more than groupings of nation states.

He wonders whether these actors are truly players in the global economy, by coming up with 4 "i"s:

1. Investment
2. Industry
3. Information Technology
4. Individual Consumers

Along with these 4 I's is the global economy that works very well, thankyou, with them. It probably means, in his view, that "the middleman role of the nation states [is] obsolete". Instead "geographical units", such as Hong Kong, Kansai region, or Catalonia wield more significant power.

Though he believes in the "region states", his port of entry is that nation states--as understood in the traditional Westphalian system" are obsolete, and that they have become "unnatural."

The next couple of chapters promise to be exciting!

Till next time!

Will the Real "Regional Integrationist" Stand Up?

Rare is the "regional integrationist that will not concede defeat against what I consider the Eurocentric paradigm of the EU being the de facto trend-setter of global regional integration. Even more rare is the one that will openly advocate "the possibility of a UN reform in which regional organisations would be given seats in the Security Council along with states."

What is not strange is who is doing the advocating -- none other than Luk Van Langenhove of the United Nations University Comparative Regional Integration Studies [UNU-CRIS]. It is a delicious irony that the Belgian be based at a research institution on regional integration that is also home to one of the most advanced regions in the West--Flanders.

This ostensible little detail about the regions is important, in my view, because as I read the article linked on the UNU-CRIS website, I could not help but mull over the use of the word regions, especially in the context of EU integration.

Langenhove makes an interesting an important point that:

The EU is the world's most advanced form of supranational regionalism. It has managed to develop a model that incorporates political elements in a deep economic integration, and challenges existing assumptions about governance.

.

This level of sophistication seems to have a lot to do with the EU's Committee of Regions that has played an important role in cementing this so-called "deep economic integration." One website describes the CoR as:

The Committee of Regions is a new advisory body established by the
Maastricht Treaty, to take into account the views of regional and local
government in European decision making. The advisory Committee of Regions is
a compromise between the aspirations of powerful regions in federally
organised member states (such as Germany, Spain and Belgium), which have
long asked for direct influence on EU decision making, and the views of much
more centralised member states (such as the UK, Denmark and the Netherlands)
whose regional governments have only derived powers from a strong central
government.

A very superficial response to the EU's Committee of Regions was to think how one could be replicated elsewhere, say, in the African Union countries, where a number of countries--say many along the West african sub-region--fall under the ambit of regions. In my own country of Ghana, there are no less than ten regions, with regional ministers and district chief executives of those regions. This all for a country of roughly 22 million!

So, I can most definitely conceive of an AU that has a system like the EU's CoR, where regions are twinned and affiliated in a manner that they act as separate entities within the states they are part of.

But the operative word, today, is "states".

Van Langenhove prefaces his article with some history about states and the Westphalian order. As regards the latter, he maintains:

The Westphalian order that emerged in Europe and now spans the world proved to have a stabilising effect, making it difficult to change borders to create bigger units, especially now that war has largely been abandoned as a means of expanding territory. But some existing states are under pressure to split up as a result of nationalism and calls for cultural autonomy.

The alarm bells that the author gives about the stability of the Westphalian system--and how that is is danger is more relevant, because it means that the system is imperfect and can be modified. But does that mean that regions are the answer to resolving those potential dangers?

The author does not go this way in saying the region is a panacea. Rather, he argues that:

I myself believe that an announcement of the "death of the state" is – to paraphrase Mark Twain – gravely exaggerated. In the foreseeable future, states will remain important centres of governance. But in an attempt to face the challenges of globalisation, states can – on a voluntary basis – turn to world and local regions to complement and even strengthen their power. As such, the world of states would gradually become a world of states and of regions.

Regions as Complementary Roles
So, in fact, regions are complements to the nation state--and not substitutes. World and local regions helping to complement and strengthen the power are important in going this way. Note what Van Langenhove says about the EU:

European integration has been accompanied by "de-federalisation": the emergence of sub-national regional governance. The EU is not just a collection of 27 member states; it is also an association of hundreds of local regions. Regions can be found at all territorial levels. One could organise nice academic debates about what a region actually is, but a more pragmatic approach is just to accept the plurality of the concept and focus on what regions are not. They are not sovereign states!

In my own country of Ghana, the Ashanti region--the second biggest region after the Northern region--is renowned for having called for independence from Ghana many years ago. Belgium's own recent troubles that lasted more than six months when the relatively stronger Flanders region wanted to do what looked like a split from Bruxelles-capitale politicking is a testament of the potential divisiveness of ensuring strong regions within states.

States won't disappear
Thing, though, is that states are not going to go away any time soon--neither will regions. Extrapolate this to the international level, and it seems likely that most regional organisations that we know will not go away any time soon either! Rather, I foresee that they will do the natural thing of evolving and transforming into bigger entities, such as ECOWAS Secretariat into an ECOWAS Commission, and the former OAU into the African Union in 2003--very much modelled on a hybrid between the United Nations and the European Union.

That ASEAN now has a charter, where the EU does not is not necessarily an indication of the sophistication of that ten-member grouping, but rather one of the decision to evolve into a more supra-national entity with what is considered legal personality.

These are certainly big ideas coming from a big article, and a lot more could be said. In the interests of time, I will broach this article at another time, for the ideas have tremendous resonance in the regional integration paradigm. That the EU is to play a greater role in the development of regional integration worldwide is a palatable idea.

It is a shame, therefore, to see it using the Economic Partnership Agreements as a stick to disrupt the regional integration initiatives of the AU countries.

Still, Van Langenhove's point here is not to be sneezed at, and I sincerely believe that it is providing the grounds for a critical and progressive look at regional organisation as well:

The multiple world of regions could be a way to replace the illusion of a single national identity with the more realist view that people hold plural regional identities. As such, the world of regions might not only be a more complex world but also one with more chances of peace and freedom. Europe can help to make this challenging vision real.

The Africa Unity Day that Wasn’t

By E.K.Bensah II

The last holiday that Ghanaians enjoyed might have gone unnoticed to many in its symbolism purely because they did not understand the significance of it. It is interesting to note on the news wires that even the US government congratulated the African Union(AU) for the celebration of forty-five years of its existence on 25 May. So when in scanning the Ghanaian media, one heard and read almost nothing symbolic about that celebration, it struck me as a worrying trend in our psyche of “Africanness”.

Granted, we do not need a holiday alone to remind ourselves that we are Ghanaian in particular, and Africans in general, but I do wonder whether it animates us sufficiently. For a country that played host to an African Union (AU) summit in June 2007 in the fiftieth anniversary of the country’s history, it is downright unacceptable, in my opinion, that Africa Unity day came and went with a non-existent fanfare.

We can speculate as much as we can—that it is an election year, or that it fell on a Sunday, therefore the media’s antennae were not awakened to the significance of it, and then some. In my view, we have no excuse about the silence, especially at a time when the regional is taking centre stage.

Take the case of Burma and the cyclone that it experienced a few weeks ago. Two weeks ago, British foreign minister and former senior UN official Lord Mark Malloch-Brown toured the region to try to establish whether there could be greater collective Asian/ASEAN response to the disaster. This was important, because the reluctance of the regime suggested that a regional response—translated through the ten-member grouping of the Association of South East Asian countries (ASEAN) – that includes Burma would elicit a more effective response. His efforts proved useful, because ultimately, a Franco-British deal would eventually facilitate ASEAN’s greater role in the disbursement of aid to the victims of the cyclone. All this has come against the backdrop of criticism in some quarters suggesting ASEAN should be disbanded.

One particular article in the *Jakarta Post” entitled “Myanmar disaster challenges ASEAN’s utility” went so far as saying that ASEAN has been lethargic in the manner in which it has been implementing its programmes, including a 2005 Agreement on Disaster Management and Disaster Response that was never signed.

The case is not that much different in this part of the world, where ECOWAS, established since 1975, has, many times, come under some flak for not living up to its agreements. To date, the “real” meaning of ECOWAS integration is debatable, considering the hassles citizens of West Africa—comprising some 230 million—experience traveling through the sub-region.

Food crisis
The challenges notwithstanding, what we can say ECOWAS has done off late is respond regionally to the food crisis that has afflicted much of the developing world.

Last week, the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) agreed to provide $1billion annually to support agricultural productivity in the West Africa sub-region as part of its contribution towards resolving the food crisis. This was part of the outcome of an extraordinary meeting of the regional grouping and their ministers of agriculture, trade and finance. This development has spawned a number of discussions around ECOWAS and the implementation of a common agricultural policy.

Truth be told, it would be as far back as 2005 that the grouping would adopt the ECOWAS Agricultural Policy (ECOWAP). Three years later, its implementation remains moot. According to TRADENET website, in Senegal’s attempt to implement ECOWAP, the country begun putting in place a National Programme of Agricultural Investment. The question now is getting the mqjority of ECOWAS countries adopting the policy.

Imperatives
Any regional grouping learns from demands—or imperatives—that are placed on it. This means that when the Liberian conflict broke out in 1990, ECOWAS was compelled to send troops through its peacekeeping/-enforcement wing of ECOMOG. Today the Labadi-based Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Centre(KAIPTCE) is a testament to the ECOWAS imperative of conflict resolution and prevention. I daresay considering earthquake-struck China’s proximity to the ASEAN region, the grouping’s new imperative could be that of disaster management!

Regional Integration Perspectives: Closer Towards an East Asian Community?; AU-GCC FTA in the Offing?

There is some ground-breaking stuff going on in the area of regional integration: no less than the fifty-three member African Union has instituted an audit of its institutions.

It goes without saying that policy without direction is policy in a vaccum. An audit as a self-evaluating and self-monitoring tool can help the AU look deep into itself, and attempt at a resolution of some of the existential angst that it is suffering from. Arguably, one of the biggest of these is the proposed union government that was the subject of debate at the AU summit here in Accra last June.

An article in IPPmedia.com maintains that according to a report by Regional Economic Development and Integration, debate has been mounting on the appropriate form of a proposed union government. The report went on to say that conclusion on the debate of a formation of a continental government was subject to the finalization of the report.

AU-GCC Pact?
Meawhile, a very short article from gulf-times.com points to a desire by the de facto SADC hegemon South Africa to complete an FTA between the AU and the Gulf Cooperation Council. On reading the news, my visceral question was to ascertain since when South Africa had become the spokesperson for the AU; and secondly, was this not a masked desire by the country to itself establish an FTA with the GCC.

Interestingly enough, Pretoria maintains that it is impossible for one to be set up between itself and the country that will host the next session(XIII) of UNCTAD in 2012—Qatar, but one can be arranged between the GCC and the AU.

The reason being that South Africa is a member of a customs union, comprising the so-called BLNS countries (Botswana; Lesotho; Namibia and Swaziland).

Aren’t we going in circles here I wonder? Point is: the AU can set up one with the GCC. Fine, but why does SA have to speak on the 53-member body’s behalf as it did, when the South African Trade minister Mandisi Mpahlwa, speaking on the sidelines of a business forum organized by the Qatar Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told reporters when prompted by reporters. That in itself raises questions as to why reporters were asking about such an FTA to the country itself? What made them think South Africa would have the answer? Last time I looked, the AU had a Commission, which would take care of such questions!


EAC’s all the rage!
Though it’s been a while since I talked about the five-member regional organization that saw Rwanda and Burundi join its ranks in July last year, this is an EAC of a different kind. We’re talking about the East Asian Community, which has been promoted and promulgated so many times in the ASEAN world it’s no longer funny. ASEAN’s issues with Myanmar notwithstanding, it seems clear that an East Asian Community—probably modeled on the EU and NAFTA—would be a model that could work for the region. I suspect that one that worked like ECOWAS (in whichever form or content it exists) with a commission and commissioners is what might work best. The EU at 27 members seems a tad unwieldy these days, what with its aspirations to have an EU president and all that. Furthermore, with little movement on a referendum, and with ASEAN having adopted a charter where the EU failed, it seems, IMHO, that a hybrid of regional forms is what might best work for the proposed EAC.

But who am I to propose that? After all, the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), described as "a key initiative to support the formation of the East Asian Community has received full support from senior government officials in Brunei". This means, in short, that a considerable amount of resources are going to be put its way to chart the course of a putative Asian Community. Note what the article says:

The think tank, which will formally be established this year in Jakarta, will receive Y1 billion from the Japanese government for 10 years, said Hidetoshi.
The think tank will also be publishing 55 volumes of research on all 16 countries in the region soon, said Hidetoshi. Brunei's Centre of Strategic and Policy Studies (CSPS), one of the ERIA member research institutes, is involved with over 300 researches in 16 countries, including the 10 Asean countries and its dialogue partners, Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

UNCTAD XII Diary: Day 5: Final Outcome--UNCTAD XIII in QATAR!

Final session is being given by UNCTAD official

RESEARCH and ANALYSIS--solid mandate. Conference has reinforced official mandate. Innovative work. Short mandate for UNCTAD. Great. Policy options and independent analysis for developing countries. Significant.

Another area is the...role of trade and development board in conducting policy dialogue...has been retained and reinforced. So UNCTAD will continue with that on the inter-governmental level. Will review some of its flagship documents. Ministerial meeting in Addis Ababa, UNCTAD should have a commission on globalisation; this was a problem for some UNCTAD members...theer will be some discussion on globalisation issues; atr least some compromise.

UNCTAD will have two commissions--one on trade and development and will address any topic that UNCTAD has; second one will be on enterprise development and ?? Multi-yr extract groups. Issues identified by Trade and development board will be taken to the Commissions. Secretariat is still very important.

12.03pm Palestin issue being retained. Slightly problematic yesterday. A rather contentious issue that could have affected outcome. Last few hours, agreed on s.o. that satisfied everyone. UNCTAD continues to support Palestine liberation with technical assistance.

any questions?

12.05pm
YAO GRAHAM: Commissions reduced from Three to two. Commission on enterprise...what are practical implications of having globalisation as standing issue. How will it have a cross-cutting effect on how the Commission does its work? Doesn't strike as a mandate to work, but something to discuss?

RESPONSE: Our view is not the number of commissions that matter; more about what they do. Will feed into general assembly. The proposal by Africa group to have one on globalisation is not because we do not, but there will be continuous work on it.  Partly political, partly practical. Every year, we will have to prepare a background document on a specific area of globalisation.

EKB: my questions are answered below:

WORLD INVESTMENT REPORT--continued interaction with private sector. Outcome emphasises UNCTAD working with civil society and private sector

COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY--there was a paragraph in the document that referred to that.

Jo Butler speaks @ 12.13pm--Irish government provided minimum transportation and living costs. WIll try and get funding in future to go to Geneva. Commend the document. We are very pleased we have an accord. It is a good accord. Everyone will find something missing. Can be built upon the next four years.

In SAO PAOLO(UNCTAD XI), we can say it is Sao Paolo plus. WE will still have hearings once a year in context of trade and devt board; will also ensure civil society is part and parcel...CS needs to be heard, and member states need to be advised on how to be prioritised. Having a hearing once a year whereby civil society comes to Geneva is certainlhy not enough. Need to know that CSOs are an integral part. Ideas and suggestions forward so that work can be realised.

CHALLENGES IN ACCRA: we can congratulate Ghanaian govt to having sacrificed much to pass it over. Constraints to documentation. Let us not have Ghanaian govt to make one million copies, etc. Lots of statements would be avaliable on the Web. Happy to send statements through the mail. We try to take an attitude to constraint and restraint. If you heard speech on Monday and did not get it, probably because we did not have it.

HOTEL ACCOMMODATION; ensuring that all participants had a suitable room was responsibility of host, but we had to be creative by checking homes, apartments, etc. To that end, team came THREE weeks in advance. Happy to answer any questions. 12.19pm.

INTERACTIVITY--everyone wants to be heard. Panellists to a minimum and interactivity to the highest leevl, but when you have so many coming from afar, they want to be heard! For the future, going beyond read statements. The ACCRA Accord does not stop here. It is a work in progress. How we implement mandates in next four years matter.

Look forward to hearing from you in the future.

YAO GRAHAM: we will put together a report about the forum to put on the website. We have compiled a list of participants. Some registered but did not turn up. UNCTAD also haas its own lists. Have had a summary of some events and that will all go up. We can optimise the amount of information. We have a common interest,. That networking part is where we have a responsibility. Just last word on the costs, some brought by UNCTAD, daily amount not enough for costs. Some future work for the UN and their data. Hotels are expensive in Accra.

Let me say here on behalf of the African participants, there is a pattern. Very little African representation. Certainly more than in Sao Paolo. Next meeting in QATAR , challenge. Prices went through the roof in Doha 2001, let alone in 2012, UNCTAD XII. Nothing more to say. Just again to thank you for your forbearance.

Thankyou all very much; have a safe journey back home.

done @ 12.27pm (uneditted)

Re: Briefing of UNCTAD XII Negotiations--The Killing of UNCTAD?

6.04pm--UNCTAD does not have an effective communications strategy (what does that mean?)

missed quite a bit, but interventions should seek to clarify some of that which I missed.

here goes.

6.05pm SESSION ON COMMODITIES, where developed countries wanted to push commodities on the shoulder of national govts. Last night, issue not resolved. Can you help on that? If not, how. Commodities are coming up strongly.

Secondly, can you explain what are the different groupings--and who was part of it.

THIRDLY--Strengthening of UNCTAD. How contentious an issue do you see this point where CSOs are pushing the strengthening of UNCTAD, thank you.



INTERVENTION -@--6.07pm
I would like to know the main reason why US and other countries want to abolish the policy...commissions? of unctad.

INTERVENTION--possibility of UNCTAD in the field. What is your view..why is it impt to have business at UNCTAD? what is motive of proposal?

INTERVENTION--KEPA.fi: does UNCTAD have a mandate on???

RESPONSES
============

6.08pm. On commodities, there are about three or four issues that they are trying to come up with. One on commodities ; One on Palestine. Third one is on unilateral sanctions on Cuba. They are still working on them. By eight o'clock, it would have been finalised. Different groupings--changes over the years. There are about one hundred and seventy-four countries, including China. Latin America, Caribbean, Asia, Africa. Then ofcourse, the EU, with its twenty-seven countries. Former soviet countries, etc. Then there is the loose grouping--Japan, the US, Norway, Australia; New Zealand, Japan. They do not always coordinate. This is the tradition in UNCTAD.

On the commission, this is contentious issue--for about three of five months. Official line is that they believe that the commissions do not add value in terms of policy. Many experts do not come from developing countries. Reps from member states of Geneva. They are the ones that attend and they sit there going through the same issues, etc. Also, to add value, the commissions have to come up with recommendations. At unctad, we work on consensus; the commission ends up coming up with a few conclusions and most of the time, the developing countries block it. This goes to trade and development board. It does not add up to anything...

Recently, Brazil and India have used language from UNCTAD forum to make case at WTO dispute settlement. Big countries cannot object to such language...there is that aspect as well. The time they spend debating with other countries should be addressed elsewhere

UNCTAD in the field--again tradition in core area, which is research and analysis. This is where it has been strong...we are very proud to come up with ideas that challenge...This is what has made UNCTAD different from the past. Some members think this is not helpful. They want UNCTAD more on technical cooperation; more capacity-building. Non-resident agencies; no presence in countries--c.f. imf/wb

EVALUATION--we have a mandate on regional groupings...usually, we work on agreements. We do for example assessments on services at the WTO...sometimes preparing position on working parties, etc...

NEXT ROUND OF QUESTIONS: if no more questions, we thank spokesperson from conference. THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH session is ended @ 6.17pm

--editted@6.26pm Accra time--GMT

Briefing of UNCTAD XII Negotiations--The Killing of UNCTAD?

6.04pm--UNCTAD does not have an effective communications strategy (what does that mean?)

missed quite a bit, but interventions should seek to clarify some of that which I missed.

here goes.

6.05pm SESSION ON COMMODITIES, where developed countries wanted to push commodities on the shoulder of national govts. Last night, issue not resolved. Can you help on that? If not, how. Commodities are coming up strongly.

Secondly, can you explain what are the different groupings--and who was part of it.

THIRDLY--Strengthening of UNCTAD. How contentious an issue do you see this point where CSOs are pushing the strengthening of UNCTAD, thank you.



INTERVENTION -@--6.07pm
I would like to know the main reason why US and other countries want to abolish the policy...commissions? of unctad.

INTERVENTION--possibility of UNCTAD in the field. What is your view..why is it impt to have business at UNCTAD? what is motive of proposal?

INTERVENTION--KEPA.fi: does UNCTAD have a mandate on???

RESPONSES
============

6.08pm. On commodities, there are about three or four issues that they are trying to come up with. One on commodities ; One on Palestine. Third one is on unilateral sanctions on Cuba. They are still working on them. By eight o'clock, it would have been finalised. Different groupings--changes over the years. There are about one hundred and seventy-four countries, including China. Latin America, Caribbean, Asia, Africa. Then ofcourse, the EU, with its twenty-seven countries. Former soviet countries, etc. Then there is the loose grouping--Japan, the US, Norway, Australia; New Zealand, Japan. They do not always coordinate. This is the tradition in UNCTAD.

On the commission, this is contentious issue--for about three of five months. Official line is that they believe that the commissions do not add value in terms of policy. Many experts do not come from developing countries. Reps from member states of Geneva. They are the ones that attend and they sit there going through the same issues, etc. Also, to add value, the commissions have to come up with recommendations. At unctad, we work on consensus; the commission ends up coming up with a few conclusions and most of the time, the developing countries block it. This goes to trade and development board. It does not add up to anything...

Recently, Brazil and India have used language from UNCTAD forum to make case at WTO dispute settlement. Big countries cannot object to such language...there is that aspect as well. The time they spend debating with other countries should be addressed elsewhere

UNCTAD in the field--again tradition in core area, which is research and analysis. This is where it has been strong...we are very proud to come up with ideas that challenge...This is what has made UNCTAD different from the past. Some members think this is not helpful. They want UNCTAD more on technical cooperation; more capacity-building. Non-resident agencies; no presence in countries--c.f. imf/wb

EVALUATION--we have a mandate on regional groupings...usually, we work on agreements. We do for example assessments on services at the WTO...sometimes preparing position on working parties, etc...

NEXT ROUND OF QUESTIONS: if no more questions, we thank spokesperson from conference. THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH session is ended @ 6.17pm

--editted@6.26pm Accra time--GMT

My Piece on UNCTAD for Ghana's only Sunday Newspaper Sunday World

from: http://www.sundayworldonline.com/newsdetails.asp?id=3110&cat_id=1

 

EVERY four years since 1964 when it was established, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has been holding its highest level meeting, where member States make assessments and reviews of current trade and development issues, discuss policy options and formulate global policy responses. The conference also sets the organization's mandate and work priorities.
UNCTAD is in fact an organ of the UN's General Assembly, and seeks to add value by enabling intergovernmental agencies arrive at a consensus regarding the state of the world economy. The last time an UNCTAD conference was held in Africa was in 1996, when it was hosted by the South African government under UNCTAD IX. This year, it is back in Africa-specifically Ghana, where the 12th session of UNCTAD is to take place.

The theme of UNCTAD XII is "Addressing the Opportunities and Challenges for Development" , and comes at what some might consider an appropriate time when the global economy is beset with a number of significant challenges-as exemplified by the rising prices of food stuff, which has been triggered by the interest by the West in bio-fuels; as well as the impact of the US's sub- prime mortgage crisis that saw poor people in America being given loans they were unable to pay back, triggering a crisis of confidence in the credit markets.

The ramifications of these two events have stretched far and wide to even Europe, where not only has the British-based Northern Rock collapsed, triggering its nationalization by the Brown government, but there have been instances of riots in countries as far apart as Haiti, d'Ivoire and Senegal. Against backdrop, it might seem difficult reconcile the fact that there is a commodity boom.

Put into context, these elements an apparent commodity boom, in foodstuffs and general malaise he global economy point to a globalization that continues to create opportunities and challenges. stands to reason that because of civil society organizations (CSOs) particularly keen to make an impact in the outcome of the conference. One way of doing so is at the Society Forum that will take place from 17-19 April in Accra before conference. CSO Forums not new practice
Parallel civil society forums for many years been an important component of UN conferences. Accra conferencee is no exception. civil society, the primary concern bringing collective energies to from all the participants to finalize the civil society statement that be delivered at the opening plenary of the main conference.


Even before the conference, society has already initiated activities that will seek to influence outcome of UNCTAD XII-as exemplified by the many workshops, seminars and forums that will take place in those three days. The tradition has been for CSOs-which incidentally include the media-to unite around common positions that are enshrined in a Declaration that is formally presented to the UNCTAD conference. Here in Accra, the collective statement will be finalized during the 17-19 period. For this reason, the drafting process was started ahead of time so as to ensure the broadest possibilities to input into it.

As for the main conference, the main theme has been framed in a way as to invite Ministers to identify the changes that need to be made to tackle the challenges around globalization, as well as capitalize on the attendant opportunities.

According to one Ambassador Stepenson's outlines on the UNCTAD website, the first sub-theme invites a discussion on how to continue to enhance policy coherence at all levels, including global, regional, bilateral and national.

The second involves examining the new policy environment and how new realities-such as terrorism and climate change-are affecting strategies for the promotion of development; the third is more proactive in the way it which it invites action on enhancing the enabling environment at all levels. Finally, sub-theme four focuses on how to strengthen UNCTAD by enhancing its development role, impact and institutional effectiveness.

In fact, for Ghanaians, the role of UNCTAD might hold resonance not just because there is a general impression that many Ghanaians are unaware of this forty-four -year old UN agency, and therefore a better appreciation

of it can be obtained here at the CSO Forum, but also because there has been a lot of talk about the WTO and its influence of developing countries, including Ghana, but rarely has there been an understanding of how a countervailing influence it can represent to the neoliberalism enshrined in the WTO, where trade matters above all else.

UNCI'AD's edge over the WTO is in the manner in which it consistently undertakes research, policy analysis and data collection for the debates of government representatives and experts. Furthermore, it offers technical assistance that is specific to the needs of developing countries. In the last Trade and

Development Report on regional integration for example, UNCTAD talked about the need for developing countries to be given policy space to develop their own regional integration, simultaneously castigating the offensive launched by the West against poor countries and the tremendous pressure they are often under to sign FfAs.

Regrettably, the report went little-noticed among many Ghanaians. UNCI'AD XII is an opportunity to make a loud noise and re-dress constructive and proactive debates on the imbalance that has been created by forces greater than that of poor countries.

 

ENDs 

ASEAN/SAARC Integration Gospel, according to The Economist

You have got to give it to the Economist. Once it propounds theories on regional integration, people are bound to listen. It hasn't been in this business of writing and influencing for almost two centuries for nothing. But that has got to change.

On issues of regional integration, people are getting smart, and being more discerning. Old attitudes that seek to see the EU as the precursor of regional integration everywhere, or those that seek to perpetuate the idea that it is because of countries against each other that cause the fragmentation of regional block are not quite fading into insignificance, but fading...somewhere!

Whilst there is some truth to these ideas, it's always important to look beneath the surface.

The Economist sadly, in its latest article looking at ASEAN, fails to do so. In my view, any generalist on regional integration could have come up with the view.

It starts off by saying all that we know: "The European Union has plenty of critics".

By gum, surely a secondary school leaver could have come up with that!

Then it goes on:

"For Asian leaders who seek greater regional integration across the continent, however, the EU surely provides at least a distant goal, if not a model. But time spent in Brussels talking to officials at the European Commission about the EU’s relations with Asia highlights the gap between the EU and its nearest Asian equivalents"

Let me not begin to presume that I am cognisant of the discussions that transpired between EU officials, but I can say authoritatively that this post goes to fly in the face of the Economist magazine's claim. In that article, EU officials from the 28th session of the Inter-Parliamentary ASEAN Assembly were claiming that ASEAN's model was a commendable one. They went on:

"We have good relations and strong economic links. The EU is a large investor and we create a lot of trade in Asean and vice-versa."

2. "Apart from having a common economic interest, our regional cooperation is the most advanced and successful in the world,"

3. "Until last year AIPA was still called the Parliamentary Organisation. It stresses parliamentary influence in Asean just like the European parliament"

Clearly, saying that there is work to be done does not discount the commendable nature of the organisation that is ASEAN, but in my view, the Economist should not go away making readers feel that ASEAN is clamoring to be like the EU--otherwise the ASEAN Charter would not have been passed!

Still, it is interesting to note that the article talks about war having been fought among the current 27-member-strong EU several decades ago, so why does it feel that if there are issues between India and Pakistan in SAARC over Kashmir, the two countries cannot sort it out? It writes:

In comparison, the two big Asian integrative ventures—the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC)—are puny striplings.

ASEAN has at least achieved the first aim. Formed in 1967, just after a period of “confrontation”, just short of war, between Indonesia and Malaysia, it has made armed conflict between its members (now ten of them) seem very unlikely.

SAARC is not even there yet. It is riven by bloody internal conflicts in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, and a dormant but unresolved dispute over Kashmir between India and Pakistan that has sparked three wars in the past. A regional conflagration, sadly, cannot be ruled out.

In Brussels, SAARC hardly gets a mention. This is not just because its contribution to regional integration is so inchoate. It is also because, within South Asia, India physically, politically and economically dwarfs its neighbours.

This reference to India/Pakistan is a development that needs must be talked about in discussions over any SAARC integration, but I would have assumed the esteemed magazine to have elaborated a bit more than the sentiment that things can turn into a "regional conflagration."

It is fair to say that integration in SAARC is slow and, well, very slow, but it is important to put things into perspective. SAARC and the EU are far from comparable. EU and ASEAN, yes, but SAARC and EU, no!

I like the fact that the Economist has woven a news story of the EU wanting an FTA with India and ASEAN around this piece, but it has done some selective interpretation of the story, in my view, to underscore how formidably efficient the EU is--and, frankly, that's not on.

Sure, the EU had problems with Burma, but let's face it, ASEAN has not kicked that country out. The ASEAN Charter is a reality and Burma does not look to be going anywhere!

It is true that the Charter might have issues on voting; and the beefing up of the Secretariat, inter alia (note that ECOWAS without a charter transformed into a Commission so as to become more "efficient"), but it is not as if ASEAN will do it today is it?

Even the much-maligned African Union has moved away from the doctrine of non-interference, albeit slowly. ASEAN will go that way some day.

In my view, it's all about shades of gray.

It is important to talk about SAARC and how it can be helped, but the EU, I suspect, knows that it because it has preferential relations with the India (a rather dominant figure within SAARC), the organisation can probably go fish.

I suspect further that any greater proactiveness by India within SAARC might go to ruffle the EU's growing feathers.

The Unbearable Lightness of Blogging

Oh the tomes! The tomes I have written in my head, and in my heart. Not to forget on paper, as well!;-)

 

Regrettably, the proverbial refrain of work has hit -- truly, madly, and deeply. And rather intensely.

 

As such, blogging has been light, and promises to be for the next w eek or so. Please bear with me.

 

I am still around!

 

Enjoy the weekend,

 

Keep safe. Keep cool.

Expansion, ECOBANK-Style

For a bank whose genesis is West African, it strikes as rather odd that a bank with the pedigree of ECOBANK would now only in 2008 be opening in the West African country of Gambia.

The news that it has joined the ranks of ECOWAS countres in which ECOBANK operates is great news. ECOBANK now covers all of the ECOWAS countries, reminding us first of its West African roots and, secondly, underscoring the importance of the its expansion into the eponymous role of a "Pan-African Bank".

One of ECOBANK's major tactics is in the acquisition of percentages of the banks in which it now operates. Speaking of which, let us remind ourselves that ECOBANK continues to expand --as exemplified by Ecobank's acquisition of 75% of no less than the East African Building Society Building.

The script runs that ECOBANK has a comparative advantage in mortgage financing, therefore this takeover is both useful in expanding respective portfolios and consolidatiung expertise.

Rememeber when ECOBANK opened a branch in Rwanda? I wondered whether this was carte blanche for the group's entry into East Africa? Well, it's a foregone conclusion now!!

This is the Way Regional Governance Should be Done

In my first Reflections on Regional Integration last year, I mentioned the importance of UN regional commissions playing a greater role in so-called regional governance--whatever form it may be expressed in. In my view, it is about the beginning of a harmonisation process between the regional organisations and the UN, which is so badly-needed.

It is therefore great stuff to read that the West African sub-regional grouping of ECOWAS is seeking to collaborate with the UN's regional commission on Africa, that is better known as UNECA.

Tongues have wagged between the head of these two organisations--Chambas and A Janneh, and it has become clear that they have

reiterated their determination to strengthen the existing partnership between their organisations, with the objective of consolidating the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) as the building bloc for Africa's integration.

We hear so much about the RECS and the RIAs, which are interchangeable terms to describe the regional groupings in their personality as economic entities, that if we are not carefu, we run the risk of being caughtnapping if we don't synergise. And when I talk about "we", I am referring to both citizens and policy-makers.

In my view, any arrangement of this sort that deflects attention away from the work of the UN should revise its note on the work that it does.

While talk is cheap, it is also an expensive enbdeavour for regional organisations to ignore the UN's regional commissions in the pursuit of what often looks like narrow-focused economic ones, which do not necessarily add value to the policies of the region.

That the ECA is intent on supporting ECOWAS towards the realisation nof a Strategic Vision adopted by ECOWAS Heads of State is a good start towards fostering a progressive look at regional integration--the way it should be done!

Communicating the ASEAN Message

"I think many journalists are not aware of the impacts of ASEAN's many achievement on us. It seems that if it is not a corruption case then they will not publish it. We realize that we have to change this" -- Dian, Foreign Ministry's director general for ASEAN affairs

Haven't we been here before?

Communicating the ASEAN message graced this blog, when I first started writing it in this way back in April 2007. Then, it was the Malaysian ASEAN Youth/Sports Minister who was encouraging the youth to face up to both global and regional challenges by learning about ASEAN.

Now, like a boon to the minister, we read that most youngsters are actually in tune with what ASEAN is doing:

It found students from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam were most likely to identify themselves with the ASEAN, with 96 percent, 93 percent and 92 percent respectively.

Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam are the newest members of ASEAN, having joined the 10-nation grouping in the 1990s.

They are often referred to as the newest four, or CMLV, and their development lacks behind the other six member countries.

Students in Singapore had the weakest affinity toward the grouping, with some 49 percent saying they were citizens of the grouping.

Even if these are the latecomers expressing this opinion, it cannot hurt for ASEAN to know that they might be getting something right.

Furthermore, it was not that they were only in tune with what the regional grouping was doing but that they also identified themselves as citizens of ASEAN.

In my view, this is a great start, and very welcome news to the South East Asia grouping, especially in the light of the establishment of its Charter last year.

Work to be done
In the meantime, much needs to be done by the media--the purveyors of information, and often the putative gatekeepers to society--to showcase the works of ASEAN. This, at least, was what Indonesia was saying.

Superficially speaking, blame can be apportioned to the media for failing to write about ASEAN. Truth be told, if there is little interest in the first place, how can you expect editors to consider writing about it. Therein lies the paradox of reconciling a responsibility to encourage citizens to feel more in tune to the regional grouping, and highlighting what it means for them, with reporting actual news about the organisation--even if it is considered bad.

On communicating regional integration to citizens, there are hardly any black-and-white areas: these agreements are realities--whether we like it or not, and so it becomes incumbent on all and sundry in the media to do its level best to understand the issues inherent in them, and if it is not happening, use the media itself to question why it is not happening.

Surely, that can only be a small step to obtaining that critical and progressive view of regional integration?

Back to the (Regional) Grind: A Tale of Two Cities

To say that both the secular and non-secular world enjoyed a turbulent transition to the New Year is to seriously understate things.

I was locked up at home--gardening and listening to the BBC World Service (as I am wont to do during the weekend) when the News Hour anchor at the time--Dan Damon--interrupted regular programming to announce that there were reports coming in about the leader of the Pakistan's People Party--Benazir Bhutto--having been injured--possibly killed--in what was supposed to be a rally.

Minutes turned into hours, and over the next few days, the BBC started talking about her having been assassinated. Whilst evidently thinking of the implications for Pakistan and the lacuna of the democratic dispensations associated with the presumed assassination, I could not help but reflect over what it might mean for the role of Pakistan in no less than...SAARC.

SAARC had celebrated--or not--22 years of its existence some 20 days earlier on 8th of December, and I believed it ominous that the two countries of India and Pakistan that could make a difference in what looks like a moribund regional grouping (insofar as engaging other members to revitalize the organisation) would have one key member bedevilled by an internal crisis so profound and tortuous that the regional solution would be the last thing on its mind.

For all the analyses proferred by various pundits and whatnot, I was disappointed to not have heard mention being made of the regional implications of the violence. I would have loved to have heard SAARC issuing a statement condemning the violence. None came--and none has come.

Idem with Kenya, where, at the time of writing, AU chairman -- Ghana's John Kufuor -- is en route to try and broker peace between Odinga, leader of the ODM, and Kibaki--incumbent and "newly"-elected leader of Kenya since two Sundays ago (30 December).

It would have been equally great to have had the East African Community (EAC) condemn the violence, and also issue a statement to that effect. Neither came--and it hasn't come either.

What to me the absence of these statements speaks to is less an appreciation for the regional and more of a relatively myopic view of the conflict, and possible solutions to resolving it. Do we only turn to the regional when it's on trade? Kenya is a de facto regional leader. Look at the role it played last year in resolving conflict through the conduits of IGAD and EAC.

Does it mean that when the hegemon is under fire, the smaller members should not rally round? Where was Uganda; Tanzania; Rwanda and Burundi to say "let's go the regional way!". That the African Union (AU) was both approached and initially rejected, only to give way for their eventual intervention, in the inchoate post-election violence speaks volumes. In my view, though, the volume ought to be loudest at the regional level.

If there is to be any level of seriousness ascribed to regional integration in 2008, then here's to a greater accentuation both by smaller and bigger states within regions -- along with citizens raising the bar on the regional solution for every type of injustice being perpetrated anywhere.

My the good winds of fate blow your way in 2008!

Warm regards...

Merry christmas to u all!

Just being back
from institutional
retreat in elmina
beach resort,
central region of
ghana, i seriously
doubt that as i
happily surf the
'net on my
motorola z6, i can
provide coherent
blog entries!
While i allow
self-indulgence
2wards christmas
festivities, allow
me 2 wish all u
regular n non-
regular readers a
stupendous
christmas period,
full of peace n
love...

Bank of the South is Here, But Can Africa Bank on the Latin American Way of Regional Integration?

The new multilateral institution is considered as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and seeks to satisfy development credits demand.

Seriously, it's more than an alternative; it's also yet another expression of Venezuela and its associate MERCOSUR members of their dissatisfaction with the prevalent neoliberal system.

I've written about this Bank of the South before and I explained that the Latin Americans had something that Africans certainly didn't. Beyond blood running through their veins, it's about a radicalism and conviction so unprecedented and emanating that any of their opponents feel it viscerally that these are people not to be toyed with.

If not, how is it that despite the articulations of Venezuela against the mighty US, Venezuela has -- along with Brazil; Argentina; Bolivia; Ecuador and Paraguay -- establish this Bank of the South [I notice no Uruguay!!]. Yet, Africans have allowed themselves to be fragmented on the so-called Economic Partnership Agreements?

The fallout of the signing of a so-called EPA-lite by the East African Community and SADC (without South Africa and Namibia) just leaves one speechless--not to mention a little bit less for wear the arduous efforts of civil society -- both in the North and the South.

That said, it's important to press on to stop the discussions between the bullying EU and the other regions.

In my view, the Bank of the South initiative, a formidable alternative indeed to the Breton Woods institutions of the World Bank and IMF in the sense that "each member country would have a single vote, irrespective of size and financial contribution" (from:http://www.nationnews.com/290175804330225.php) brings into sharp relief the necessity for greater collaboration between MERCOSUR in general/Latin America specifically and other AU regionalisms to learn lessons on how they were able to resist the Free Trade Area of the Pacific in 2005, yet AU/ACP countries allowed fragmentation by the EU.

While this issue of the Bank of the South, in my view, is one of the most progressive developments in global regional integration to date--bar the ASEAN charter-- Africans ought to contemporaneously reflect on whether there is that much of a difference between the EU and the US, for them to have allowed the EU--former colonisers at that--to hoodwink many of them into an interim agreement that will most likely destroy attempts at regional integration.

ASEAN Apathy Bites the Dust with ASEAN Charter?

"ASEAN, as an inter-governmental organization, is hereby conferred legal personality," says the Charter.

According to the Blueprint, the AEC builds on four pillars: a single market and production base, a highly competitive economic region, a region of equitable economic development, and a region fully integrated into the global economy

"When it (the Charter) comes into force, it has the potential to transform ASEAN from a loose grouping of countries into a more cohesive, more effective and a more rules-based organization,"

Even at a time when the South East asian regionalisms attitude towards erring members (viz: Pakistan in SAARC, and Myanmar in ASEAN) could be described as this side short of soporific, I have to confess that I am rather excited by the prospect of an ASEAN Charter. Excited, because it signals the beginning of what can be in the critical and progressive discussion on regional integration. What can be as in what is possible, where others might have failed.

I've intoned time and again how the Europeans rejected the constitution back in 2004, yet ASEAN leaders have managed to chalk, and pass it. As to whether it will translate to the citizens is a moot point.

Whatever the case will be, I believe history will look favourably on the 10-member regional organisation that has a population of 500 million [ECOWAS has 250-300 million, and is fifteen members] for having bitten the bullet to pass the Charter.

Highlights of the Charter include a compulsion by members:

to democracy and protection of human rights, the charter also mandates the establishment of a human rights body in the region and aims to turn the region into an European Union-style market.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/071120/43/6nguj.html

Though I am wont to criticise the EU-one-size-fits-all that many regionalisms touch on at least once in their life, I am avoiding that here, because I think it's time to accentuate the positive step ASEAN has taken.

Let's remember that 4the organisation turned forty only in August this year. It didn't wait for its Jubilee before doing something constructive for its region!


Above all, and in all seriousness, ASEAN wants to use the Charter to facilitate an Asian Economic Community by 2015. Well, deadlines are great. (Isn't the world supposed to eradicate poverty by half by 2015?) What matters is that there is a framework, a structure that can be carried forward by posterity. ASEAN now has legal personality--and that certainly, four decades after it was established, can only be congratulated.

In many respects, however, I can understand why the celebrations over the charter eclipsed the UN envoy to Burma Ibrahim Gambari's visit in a way that made the meeting abortive. Put simply, the meeting didn't happen.

I surmise that not that ASEAN was denying that Myanmar is a nettlesome issue, but that to have brought the UN envoy would have been undermining the cohesion ASEAN tried so hard to fight for in taking more than two years to draft this lofty charter.

I have always been in favour of UN envoys--and it's not going to change anytime soon--but, again, I've seen a similar thing in West Africa with Cote d'ivoire when it launched its coup in September 2002.

ECOWAS also decided not to expel it, but brought pressure to bear through the collective voice of ECOWAS to bring normality to the country through...talk.

For all the necessary noise that the US is making by saying (through Susan Schwab, US trade representative) that ASEAN's relationship with Myanmar cannot be "business as usual", it makes sense that ASEAN is not going to break its party anytime soon! Let it cry when it wants to--but certainly not now that there has been a significant, critical and progressive development in ASEAN's regional integration.


quotations taken from the following links:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/20/content_7115277.htm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/20/content_7114354.htm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/20/content_7115085.htm

SAARC's Existential Angst (1)

At a time when the SAARC region is in the news thanks to one of its key members, Pakistan, it beggars belief that there has been little effort by the regional organisation, that will be celebrating its 22nd anniversary in December, on the issue of regional security .

And I should know.

I come from a region where regional security has been put on a pedestal on account of the internecine conflicts that engulfed the region in the 1990s. Despite the hegemon of Nigeria, the oil-rich country rarely ever became an obstruction in the development of peace in the ECOWAS region. Nigeria was instrumental in providing significant financial capital towards ECOMOG--the peacekeeping wing of ECOWAS. In 2007, ECOWAS has transformed from a Secretariat to a Commission with commissioners leading on the major issues pertinent to the region. Bottom line? ECOWAS, for all its problems and challenges, has moved on. That is not to say that things cannot be done better, and mindsets changed. For what it's worth we see developments.

Very little changed can be said for SAARC.

Not to deny SAARC having golf tournaments, but I find it ludicrous that a regional organisation with the size that SAARC has (seven members, excluding Afghanistan which joined recently) cannot get its regional organisation going!

Contrast this with the East African Community, which collapsed in 1977, but re-invigorated itself in 1993. Today, Rwanda and Burundi are members, making the organisation 5-member strong. Yet it's going strong. ECOWAS has 15--and look at the regional structures it has: a Parliament; a Community Court; and a strong regional security initiative.

SAARC is nowhere near.

I was encouraged, however, last week to read that Pakistan is going to host SAARC Police Chiefs meeting in February. I thought that here was encouraging news that SAARC was finally getting serious. I had the visceral feeling that the meeting was too closely associated with teh War on Terror, especially as Pakistan's role in that war was cited.

I wondered whether it would make headline news next year when Pakistan hosts the Third Meeting on Home Ministers, because it is a putative ally of the Bush administration, or would it be consigned to the proverbial dustbin of "irrelevant" news?

On the positive note, it was good to see that the SAARC Home Ministers are interested in establishing an electronic network of police authorities of SAARC countries.



It's certainly something that here, in the ECOWAS region, given the spate of gun-related crimes, we could do with! When the West Africa Police Chiefs Committee met a few weeks ago, I do not re-call hearing anything concrete like this SAARC proposal.

However, what was said by Ghana’s Minister of Interior Nana Obiri Boahen, was this:

I am also honoured to be part of this historic occasion when the Police Gendarmerie from our sister Francophone countries are joining their counterparts to discuss issues of mutual and common interest.

I am told that the ECOWAS Commission is expanding its Political Peacekeeping and Security Department to include a police unit that will take care of police issues within the ECOWAS community.

This laudable idea has been on the commission’s agenda for quite some time now and I am particularly happy that the idea is being implemented.

from:http://www.interpol.int/Public/ICPO/speeches/WapccoIntMinister20071003.asp

In my view, such lacuna go to underscore complementarities that I have talked about before being factored in any critical and progressive discussion on regional integration.

Fwd: UNITED NATIONS COMMITS TO DELIVER AS ONE AT THE REGIONAL LEVEL

I am particularly encouraged by this release from the UN's African regional commission UNECA (http://www.uneca.org). I think it marks an important step towards a degree of proactiveness and "joint-up thinking" that has been sorely lacking between the regional commissions and the UN system on development.

 

A pet personal theme of mine has always been using regional commissions to set standards on how regional integration can work--it does not have to be a pipe dream; it is certainly an attainable goal if, as always, there is sufficient commitment!

 

At a time that the UN is celebrating its 62 years, this is certainly welcome news!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ATameru@uneca.org <ATameru@uneca.org>
Date: 25 Oct 2007 07:32
Subject: UNITED NATIONS COMMITS TO DELIVER AS ONE AT THE REGIONAL LEVEL
To: ATameru@uneca.org


Press Release

 

UNITED NATIONS COMMITS TO DELIVER AS ONE AT THE REGIONAL LEVEL

New York, 24 October 2007 – Reaffirming their commitment to work together to enhance the impact of United Nations development activities, the United Nations Regional Commissions and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today signed a Cooperation Framework at UNDP Headquarters in New York.

The Cooperation Framework is intended to build on the complementarities between the work of the Regional Commissions and UNDP.  The Regional Commissions and UNDP have agreed to collaborate, coordinate and complement each other in assisting Member States achieve the Millennium Development Goals and other internationally agreed development goals.  They also commit to sharing knowledge on policy development issues, programmes, and emerging priorities to support sustainable human development; and to address issues likely to benefit from regional or multi-country involvement.   Using their comparative strengths, the Regional Commissions and UNDP will work together  to encourage organizational effectiveness at the global and regional level and also, where relevant, at the national and local levels.  Joint collaboration is expected to focus on a number of areas, including human resources development; country-level planning processes; follow-up to United Nations Summits and international conferences; regional coordination; knowledge management; regional and inter-regional technical cooperation; advisory services at the country level; and joint products and initiatives at the regional and global levels.

Upon the signing of the new agreement, Mr. Abdoulie Janneh, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, and current Coordinator of the Regional Commissions, stressed that the implementation of the Cooperation Framework, through channeling the comparative strengths and capacities of the Regional Commissions and UNDP, should result in more effective and efficient support and service delivery to the developing countries in the various regions and to UN country development work. This should also foster more coherence in UN development work at the country, regional and global levels.      

Mr. Kemal Derviş, UNDP Administrator and Chair of the Untied Nations Development Group, emphasized that strong partnerships are critical to the provision of quality development services and expressed confidence that the new Cooperation Framework will mark a new stage in this partnership for results. He also pledged UNDP's continuing support to building a more responsive and effective Untied Nations at the country and regional levels.

Prospects for an AU govt: ISS Paper Review

Prospects for an AU govt: ISS Paper Review

18 July, 2007

By E.K.Bensah II

 

Even at the best of times, regional integration is slow and protracted, and at the very worst, a problematic enterprise. Key institutions like the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa maintain that a combination of lack of ratification of protocols, coupled with the overlapping membership are some of the primordial reasons why regional integration in Africa is as encumbered as it is. To this end, a united African Union government would offer a new way of Africa doing things its own way, and what better place to discuss an AU government than in the very country that spawned one of the greatest Pan-Africanists that ever lived—Dr.Kwame Nkrumah;l even better was the fact that this discussion would take place at the Ninth Summit of the African Union, held in July.

 

It is against this backdrop that the South-African based Institute for Security Studies would launch seven papers in Accra, looking at different facets of regional integration. Given the wide scope of issues flowing from any conception of an AU government, it was important to focus on some of the challenges that might give vent to the detractors of a union government. Some of these challenges were elaborated on by one of ISS”s academics.

 

To say that Dr.Mzukisi Qobo, a research associate at the South African Institute of International Affairs, is against union government is, in fact, to do a disservice to the man, for he is not so much against any conception of union government as he is against one that fails to take into account a market-based approach. Operating from the principle that the current rhetoric is “decidedly state-centric and obsessed with anti-imperialism”, his take is explicit: a greater involvement of non-state actors, as well as “a normative convergence on the issues of democratization and promotion of human rights.”

 

While noone has denied the utility of democratic dispensations at the domestic level facilitating an enabling environment conducive to economic growth, it would seem that this is not the end-all and be-all. The use of non-state actors—often a codeword for the private sector—may be palatable, only insofar as it feeds into the ideal of a regional integration project that is people-centred. Without the people element, the conception of an AU government predicated merely on the development of the economy would seem myopic in the extreme.

 

That said, the author outlines four main challenges associated with regional integration in a manner that reflects his attachment to the neo-classical paradigm based on export-orientation.

 

In his view, the biggest challenge to regional integration in the context of prospects towards a United States of Africa is to do with Africa’s view of globalization. He maintains that African countries are not enjoying the benefits of globalization, because they have been so imbued by the anachronistic ideas of a Pan-Africanism that is impractical. Her writes: “the Pan-Africanist ideology is slowly becoming eclipsed by pragmatism. Notions such as Ujaama or African socialism coined by Julius Nyerere are gradually losing their popular appeal, as various countries start to favour market-based approaches”. Alarmingly, without citing who these leaders are, the author maintains there are “an emerging group of African reformers…increasingly realizing that history’s inexorable evolution is not to the socialist nirvana of autarchy and self-reliance but to a market-based economy and global interdependence.”

 

Secondly, Qobo argues that African countries mismanaged their economies after colonialism, which inevitably led to corruption. It is interesting to note that he makes little mention of the impact of the deleterious effects of IFI-imposed policies of the World Bank and IMF, and the extent to which they played adverse effects on the countries of African economies.

 

He even goes on to make the spurious argument that despite the World Bank “channeling massive financial resources towards the improvement of the infrastructure is[sic] areas of water and roads, public financial systems and local economic governance in various countries”,  African economies had failed to create a more enabling environment for business. Let’s remember that for Qobo, a sound environment conducive to “bold” economic reforms spell success in African regional integration.

 

He cites as a third major challenge the absence of a Central Bank for Africa, which has caused chaos in Africa’s financial system: “the advantage of an independent Central Bank is transparency, predictability, and accountability in monetary policy. This lends”, he writes, “credibility to the economy and insulates monetary policy, especially interest rates, from being manipulated by politicians for short-term gains.”

 

This point, whilst credible, is utopian, for the current practice where money from donors is tied to aid comprehensively inhibits any control that African countries might have on regulating their finances. That the Bretton Woods institutions enjoy a great stranglehold and say in the capital account of AU countries is sufficient to render an idea like this null and void. The impression, regrettably, one gets from reading this is that the author appears out of touch of the practical obstacles that remain from the current relationship with our donors.

 

A fourth point that he makes that lends greater credence with some of the key challenges is the issue of debt servicing, and the extent to which it cripples AU countries’ economies: “Africa is also a continent that is adversely affected by soaring foreign debt and is highly dependent on flows of overseas development assistance—most of which is re-channeled [by way of consultants] and multilateral credit institutions to service debt.”

 

These four main points in the paper are further underscored by an attempt at alternatives, with the first being a regional integration that runs in the vein of the European Union, where membership is incremental, and with “the criteria for membership includ[ing] democratic indicators, fiscal prudence and monetary policy variables.”

 

Put simply, fiscal prudence is about rolling back the state by spending less on provision of social services, and much more of this kind of ideology finds expression in much of his paper. He writes, for example, about the need for “bold” and “far-reaching” economic reforms. In fact, he makes no secret that, in his view, this is the way for Africa and its regional integration. To him, such measures, taken at the domestic level, would set a precedent at the regional one.

 

In other words, a more liberalized domestic economy should translate into a regionally-liberalized space, where there is a greater focus on export-orientation and market-based approaches. He goes so far as to argue that even if a regional mechanism is to “have credibility, larger countries or groups within the integrating regions need to play a more active and influential leadership role.” These “larger groups” he talks about are reminiscent of the role of hegemons within the existing regional groupings (South Africa, Nigeria, to name but two). Regrettably, he fails to expound on this point beyond saying that the hegemons facilitating a climate conducive to investment.

 

What he does do, however, is give a score card of some of the existing regional integration initiatives which he considers “promising”: SADC, CEMAC; COMESA; EAC; and ECOWAS. Analysed through the filter of the extent to which they have pursued “comprehensive trade liberalization and facilitation measures”, his result is as evident as it is emphatic: “despite these successes, it should be stressed these RECS still have a long way to go to achieve the objectives of the A[frican] E[conomic] C[ommunity].”

 

However, he raises another point that seems as ridiculous as it is spurious. In his view, one of the areas of “notable success” is the establishment of the Pan-African Parliament in March 2004. He maintains: “this has a value for enlarging the space for dialogue and ensuring factors beyond the executive arms of government participate in shaping continental development and influencing processes of regional integration and cooperation.” For a so-called Pan-African law-making body that enjoys an administrative status over an executive one three years after its inception, this argument is risible in the extreme.

 

Conclusion

Throughout the paper, Qobo gives in many times to the apparently alluring appeal of the leitmotiv of corruption and mismanagement to explain away some of the challenges facing African countries on the rocky road towards the magnificent vision of an African Union government. This line of thinking, however, is one drop short of myopic because it fails to fully acknowledge the nebulous and nefarious prescriptive policies of what the Monde Diplomatique newspaper called in 2002 as the “other axis of evil”: the Bretton Woods Institutions, and the WTO.

 

Although Qobo, at some point, refers to regulation, he is far too late in the game of advocating market-based reforms that we leave the article in visceral repulsion at this over-the-top suggestion of bold economic reforms setting a precedent for the regional.

 

ENDs

 

This is an uneditted version of a review that appeared in TWN-Africa’s African Agenda (vol10.3)