Encumbrances in African regional integration architecture

Abstract

Regional integration forms institutions whose primary objective is political economy cooperation. Governments often see the closer integration of neighboring economies as the first step in creating a larger regional market for trade and investment. This is contended to spur greater efficiency, productivity gain, and competitiveness, not just by lowering border barriers, but by reducing other costs and risks of trade and investment. Regional integration architecture is part and parcel of the present global economic order, and this trend is now an acknowledged future of the international global order. Regional integration arrangements are majorly the outcome of a necessity felt by nation-states to integrate their economies in order to achieve rapid economic development, decrease conflict, and build mutual trust between and among the integrated units. This scenario is, however, threatened by numerous encumbrances that this paper seeks to interrogate using Africa as a case study, hence the scholarly and policy raison d’etre.