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CASE STUDY 4.2: AFRICA’S ECONOMIC INTEGRATION

  • What reasons are listed for the proliferation of trading blocs in Africa? Consider these and can you think of any other reasons?

Answer

Reasons behind the proliferation of trading blocs in Africa.

  1. Colonial past
  2. New blocs imposed on existing blocks in 1960s to 1980s
  3. Late 1980s – ideals of pan-Africanism via regional cooperation
  4. Now – the Constitutive Act of African Union is next stage
  5. What is the prospect of building an Africa-wide trading bloc?

 

Answer

  1. To understand the possible future you have to ask: Why so unsuccessful?
  2. The case study suggestions are:
  3. Ignored political aspect and little shared vision and stability
  4. Too much concentration on institutions and structure which were far too great in number.
  5. Most integration is between non-industrial countries, reliant on agriculture and little intra-regional trade (compare with Europe where there was already a lot of intra-regional trade pre EEC)
  6. 800m people but GDP of less than France – very low income area
  7. Economic concentration in certain area – needs structural funds but see (d)

The first two are ways that African integration was handled in the past and so could be corrected in the future. The last 3 are very long term and major economic problems which Africa would need a great deal of help dealing with.

 

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