Regional integration in Africa : Challenges and prospects* A contribution to the Handbook of Africa and Economics Jaime de Melo Yvonne Tsikata Abstract Political motives, geography, and the uneven distribution of gains trumped the traditional efficiency gains across Africa’s Regional Economic Communities (RECs). Our projections suggest that the Indian Ocean economy is likely to play a larger role in the world economy with rising prosperity by 2025. The bulk of NTMs initiated in 2017 were technical barriers to trade (59.9 per cent) and sanitary and phytosanitary measures (32.2 per cent). Advances and Challenges in Regional Integration Jointly organized by Hitotsubashi University and the IMF Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific March 3-4, 2016 A decade ago, there was much discussion about when Asia might achieve full economic integration, including the establishment of a … (, Hussain, M. G., Failler, P., Karim, A. The e-mail addresses that you supply to use this service will not be used for any other purpose without your consent. In relation to customs, the ‘trading across borders’ indicator compiled by the World Bank gives an idea of how many hours, on average a country takes for border compliance. A classic hub and spoke network of some 11 regional institutions and FTAs are involved in governing the Indian Ocean economy and furthering regional economic integration. This paper examines regional economic integration challenge in Africa locating key issues within theory and practice. CARICOM is one of the oldest integration schemes in the Western Hemisphere, the largest in terms of membership, yet by far the smallest in economic and geographic terms. The major strategic risks they identify are: the possibility of disruption to energy exports from the Arabian Gulf and Iran to the rest of the world, the risk of an open conflict between India and Pakistan, security threats to the key shipping lanes that pass through the Indian Ocean, and the possibility of military confrontation between major powers in the Indian Ocean. LDCs also rely on trade-related taxes for a larger share of their revenue as limitations in tax administration capacity and large informal sectors undermine the efficacy of other forms of taxation (Burgess & Stern, 1993), which further raises their trade costs. The Indian Ocean economy grew by an annual average of 5.6 per cent per year during 2000–2008 and slowed slightly to an average of 5.1 per cent in 2011–2017, led by a strong performance in South Asia (see Figure 4). Regional economic integration is characterized first and foremost by the setting up of preferential trading agreements (PTAs) between independent states. Amidst fiscal constraints, many Indian Ocean economies need to undertake public investment in port development and customs modernisation. Regional integration is viewed as a significant initiative with regard to stimulating economic growth amongst member states and enhancing intraregional trade, security initiatives, and bilateral and multilateral agreements. Adding to this, the tangle of regional institutions are about 10 bilateral FTAs that involve Indian Ocean economies. Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress, Why Obama will read the riot act to Arroyo, #RiceNotBullets: Denial of food and Shooting of Farmers are Both Forms of Violence, Human Rights Violations, กลไกระงับข้อพิพาทระหว่างรัฐและนักลงทุนในข้อตกลงความร่วมมือหุ้นส่วนยุทธศาสตร์ภาคพื้นเอเชีย-แปซิฟิก (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement: TPP), DISCLOSURE,OR DECEPTION? The EPA negotiations revealed important gaps between political ambitions and economic reality in African regional integration. 7/No. Downloadable! But in terms of trade-led growth and the potential for greater regional economic integration, four challenges appear most pressing. Variations between the sub-regions seem likely. Free trade area. Challenges to regional integration: the case of SADC By Henning Melber∗ At the beginning of the 21st century, Swedish authorities drafted and ultimately adopted (on 27 June 2002) a “Swedish Strategy for Support for Regional and Subregional Development Cooperation in Sub-Saharan Africa” as a framework for the period until 2006. The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article. For example, the share of South Asia’s trade with the rest of the Indian Ocean has increased from 18.1 per cent in 2000 to 21 per cent in 2017. Furthermore, RCEP addresses the special needs of less-developed ASEAN economies through early elimination of tariffs on products of interest to them and through the provision of development assistance to narrow development gaps. CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS OF REGIONAL INTEGRATION IN AFRICA: A CASE STUDY OF EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY BY DAVID NGOCHI NGARI Reg. Tel: +66 2 218 7363 1 pg. Some society journals require you to create a personal profile, then activate your society account, You are adding the following journals to your email alerts, Did you struggle to get access to this article? This is linked to the growing importance of trade between sub-regions in the Indian Ocean, rather than deepening integration within these sub-regions (see Figure 3). Finally, the last I would mention is how to undertake a process of regional integration that transcends the logic of capitalism, to borrow the words of Hugo Chavez. LDCs are thought to be vulnerable to economic and environmental shocks and have low levels of human development. 1. As Figure 6 shows, there is considerable variation between Indian Ocean economies in this area too. With trade playing a lesser role in economic activity than before, regional growth has also slowed. Example is the West African Gas Pipeline. A large amount of research in this area is focused on the growing strategic and economic rivalry between India, the largest Indian Ocean littoral state and China (Bastos, 2014; Brewster, 2014; Chaudhury & Basu, 2016), though Mohan (2017) and Mendis (2012) have also considered the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean for Europe and the United States, respectively. This paper therefore, examines the current African integration efforts in the age of globalisation in a bid to show the current development and future challenges. Members of _ can log in with their society credentials below, Ganeshan Wignaraja, Adam Collins, and Pabasara Kannangara. The Indian Ocean is an increasingly important component of the world economy. This article examines increasing regional economic integration in the Indian Ocean, along with the region’s rising importance in the global economy and outlines the challenges to greater regional integration. Box MP167 Mount Pleasant Harare, Zimbabwe. March 3-4, 2016. Another is the subsidization of the oil needs of 14 Caribbean countries by Venezuela, which sells fuel to them at 40 per cent off the world price. Fax: +66 2 255 9976. 5The simple average tariff level is the unweighted average of the effectively applied tariff rates for all products. He goes so far as to call IORA ‘a regional non-starter’ as its members are too diverse and geographically scattered for any meaningful integration to take place. A case thus exists for external development assistance and knowledge transfer to support the middle-income transition in the Indian Ocean economy. Regional economic integration has enabled countries to focus on issues that are relevant to their stage of development as well as encourage trade between neighbors. Civil society must not only provide a check to both the state and the market, but it must be the leading force in the new economics. Other developments and challenges: looking beyond the Customs Union. Lean Library can solve it. Intra-Indian Ocean trade also appears to have expanded, increasing modestly from 24.7 per cent of the region’s total trade in 2000 to 27.2 per cent in 2017. No. 4th Floor Wisit Prachuabmoh Building The European Union has a series of languages that it deems to be the official languages of the EU government. Trade has fundamentally shaped the Indian Ocean economy throughout history, but this has been especially true since the turn of the 21st century. Note: Data not available for Comoros, Iran, Somalia and the Maldives. The Indian Ocean Economy’s per capita GDP (current US$) is likely to almost double from US$ 3,200 to US$ 6,150 between 2017 and 2025. Source: Compiled using information available on official websites of these respective institutions. Forecasts suggest that the Indian Ocean economy will likely account for around a fifth of global GDP by 2025 and its GDP per capita is expected to almost double. Fostering public-private partnerships for port development and better targeting to countries with rising inequality and fragile situations are essential to more effectively utilise scarce external assistance. As such, there is scope to reassess the situation. Regional integration is seen as a rational response to the difficulties faced by a continent with many small national markets and landlocked countries. Mohanty et al. Most of the sub-regional economic integration arrangements mentioned above have the aim to establish a customs union and a common market through the abolition of obstacles to the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. Challenges to regional integration: the case of SADC By Henning Melber∗ At the beginning of the 21st century, Swedish authorities drafted and ultimately adopted (on 27 June 2002) a “Swedish Strategy for Support for Regional and Subregional Development Cooperation in Sub-Saharan Africa” as a framework for the period until 2006. However, to benefit from liberalisation, factors of production need to be reallocated between and within sectors. The article reviews the economic effects of such agreements on member countries and on the world trading system. In the third section, it surveys the region’s recent economic performance and regional integration. (, Voyer, M., Schofield, C., Azmi, K., Warner, R., McIlgorm, A., Quirk, G. (, Wignaraja, G., Collins, A., Kannangara, P. (, Wignaraja, G., Tyson, J., Prizzon, A., Velde, D. W. te. This article examines the global rise of the Indian Ocean economy and the challenges to building greater economic linkages within this region. Chapter III examines the external challenges facing the region today, particularly as regards its trade relations with Europe, the United States, Canada and Latin America. Beach sands rich in heavy minerals and offshore placer deposits are actively exploited by bordering countries, particularly India, South Africa, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Policy makers, leading economists and CMI program leaders examined the main lessons and findings from the European growth model and the realities of interdependencies between both rims of the Mediterranean. But in terms of trade-led growth and the potential for greater regional economic integration, four challenges appear most pressing. You can be signed in via any or all of the methods shown below at the same time. Available online: http://investmentpolicyhub.unctad.org/. The CMI hosted the fourth Rencontre Valmer to discuss the challenges of regional economic integration through the lens of the Golden Growth Report. II. Login failed. By Akbayan Representative Walden Bello* (Speech at the Conference on “Regional Integration: an Opportunity Presented by the Crisis,” Universidad de Deportes, Asuncion, Paraguay, July 21-22, 2009.) Access to society journal content varies across our titles. Bangkok 10330, THAILAND The period 1960-1980, however, witnessed the emergence of the major regional integration schemes that pushed forward the Continent’s economic integration agenda. Import tariffs in the Indian Ocean economy have fallen significantly since the 1990s reflecting gradual liberalisation in major economies like India and the creation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which contributed to falling tariffs globally. The near-term outlook for the Indian Ocean economy also appears more favourable than the for the world economy as a whole. Moreover, improved political cooperation due to regional economic integration is also vital for handling the economic and social challenges linked to globalization. Nonetheless, the numbers of NTMs initiated and notified to the WTO by Indian Ocean economies increased steadily from 128 to 348 between 2000 and 2010 and still further to 686 in 2017.66LKI calculations based on WTO (2018). 2. The Indian Ocean economy is defined broadly here as the 28 economies that border the Indian Ocean. The multiple spokes include several mostly smaller sub-regional institutions that count Indian Ocean economies among their membership. On this limited basis, it appears that FDI restrictions have fallen since 1997 but they remain more stringent than those in OECD economies (see Figure 9). Its fish are of great and growing importance to the bordering countries for domestic consumption and export. Macroeconomic monitoring occurs at the economy level but these national exercises are combined under different regional headings (International Monetary Fund [IMF], 2018a, 2018b). The Indian Ocean has also become of substantial interest to major powers beyond the region and has increasingly become a theatre in which global geo-political rivalries play out. There are four main types of regional economic integration. The fifth is how to avoid a technocrat-led process and promote instead the democratization of decision-making in all areas of the economy. Key actions would include (a) investing in port development and customs modernisation through national and mega-regional initiatives, (b) gradually reducing barriers to trade and investment, (c) setting up an IODF to support LDC participation in trade-led growth and to facilitate knowledge transfers to MICs, and (d) strengthening regional economic governance through appointing an EPG on IORA and linking sub-regional and bilateral FTAs to RCEP. The sixth, related to the previous point, is how to move away from a statist process and institutionalize civil society participation in all key areas of economic decision making. … It would also help to insure against rising protectionist tendencies internationally, as well as strengthen global and regional value chains. A third strand of research examines the possibilities for regional economic cooperation primarily through the IORA, which counts 21 littoral states as members. Chapter II offers an overview of the regional integration process, including progress on intra-regional trade liberalization, the deepening and the widening of CARICOM. Discover the world's research 19+ million members However, as the blue economy concept narrowly refers to the economic importance of ocean resources and ocean-related sectors in a given economy, it excludes the full breadth of economic activity that takes place in the 28 Indian Ocean economies and could be affected by the knock-on impact of a deterioration in maritime security. We are intrigued by the comment of President Hugo Chavez during the World Social Forum in Caracas in 2006 that these practices “go beyond the logic of capitalism.” Yet we cannot romanticize these efforts. While the IMF, the World Bank, and United Nations (UN) provide regular country and regional macroeconomic analysis, this has been confined to more traditional geographic groupings typically based on shared land borders. These are (a) port and customs quality, (b) barriers to trade and investment, (c) development gaps, and (d) nascent regional economic governance. 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