Africa’s Regional Integration is Here

It’s quite alright for people to be skeptical. After all, how does one expect 55 countries to come together to create a free trade agreement, and yet they cannot even operationalize the various ones already in place? Besides, why would a country like Nigeria want to allow other African countries to bring their stuff into their economy and yet people like Aliko Dangote could be threatened by cement from Ivory Coast, Namibia or Uganda? Based on the various contradictions, it does not make sense for anyone to hope and pray for regional integration.

Hope

But there is a nugget of hope for everyone: based on what the African Union and partners like UNECA and UNCTAD, all 55 African countries met in Niamey, Niger. In the middle of a dust bowl; as everyone was suffering from the intense heat from being on the outskirts of the Sahara, and with the support of the President of one of the world’s poorest countries, the African trade experts agreed on the overall negotiation modalities. All 55 countries – including South Sudan and Morocco agreed – in principle – that they would see about liberalizing their respective trade in goods by up to 90%. 90% of the goods each country produced could be traded across borders without major tariffs or restrictions.

Say what you will – but this is progress. It does not matter that regional economic communities like the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the east African community (EAC) have liberalized 100 percent. More importantly, watching all 55 African countries go through the lines of the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) outlines with a fine tooth comb in that Niamey Conference Hall was a sight to see. It got boring quite often; the Internet was not fully-functional and one did not have the distraction of their smart phone and the Internet. But for the most part, the trade experts were serious about their business. They diplomatically thanked the previous speaker, sought the permission of the chair, and were able to chat about various things informally. Interestingly, this was not a male-dominated affair. There were women experts everywhere; making the case for their respective countries. Women from countries that people would not have expected women to be in the lead.

At the end of the day, one must worry about the next few months. The reality is that countries are still not close to an agreement. Besides, infrastructure and intra-African trade are still a long way from performing optimally. To make things worse, economic partnership agreements (EPAs) still waiting in the wings to bite regional integration in the thigh. It does not matter that Germany has informally expressed discomfiture with reciprocal trade agreements with economies that are not yet ripe for this sort of thing. At the same time, one must grapple with the fact that China is investing in the continent – meaning that countries like Ethiopia have other priorities for their trade experts. And of course, little as a headache it might be, the recent skirmishes around second-hand clothing is not a good thing for countries that benefit from preferential access to the United States under African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).

Trade is hard

But who ever said trade negotiations were hard was absolutely right. Trade is hard. It touches all corners of a country’s life. There are those that are keen to protect local industry. There are those producers that do not want excess or cheaper imports; after all, this would threaten their local industries and source of income. Because many of these contribute to political campaigns and have made friends at the highest of municipal levels, it is not easy to wedge them out of the way with logical arguments around economies of scale or even benefits of lower goods and services for the standard of living. Trade is local. Trade is personal, and trade feeds thousands of people – legally or otherwise. And lets not forget that each time you liberalize trade, governments lose revenue and cede more power to the private sector.

However, that’s what was so impressive about what we saw in Niamey. There were no private sector interests. Instead, there were all these government officials and their supranational bodies marshaling their resources to try and benefit the private sector. Everyone seemed to talk like a small business owner. Each country’s representative was, obviously, an expert at all matters related to their respective country’s economy, and it seemed as though each one understood that a deal was better than no deal. And they delivered. The 55 African countries presented their ministers with an outline of the continental free trade area. In this outline, they agreed on how goods should be traded between them. Some countries held out for more and less. But for the most part, it seemed as though they were preparing for another round of discussions around services, investment and intellectual property. We must celebrate the small victories, and the recent adoption of negotiation modalities for goods within the future continental free trade area of 55 African countries was no small feat!

The Habari Network
Niamey, Niger