Professor Vusi Gumede
Another Africa Day/month has come and gone. Not much progress in Africa of late. This is not to say that Africa does not have any good news at all. Taking a look at one critical, if not fundamental issue about Africa, the road towards deepening integration remains very long. That is why we should not be surprised by the anti-immigrant sentiments in South Africa.
Economic hardships in various African countries, which could have been addressed by an effective integration strategy, account for the significant part of negative attitudes towards other Africans in South Africa. The economy of South Africa, although performing below par, is seen as an Eldorado for many out there.
Hence, an influx of immigrants in search of economic opportunities. The inability to improve socio-economic conditions in the various subregions within Africa results to people having to move to some of the countries. It is in this context that the South African plan on migration is unlikely to address the issue satisfactorily or sustainably.
The integration of Africa has been on cards time immemorial, but the continent remains fragmented. The Abuja Treaty (entered into in 1991) was a significant step in formalizing the ambition to deepen integration in Africa through establishing the African Economic Community (AEC). The sixth stage (final stage) of the Abuja Treatystarted at the beginning of 2024 and seeks to consolidate economic and political integration which will finally lead to the creation of the AEC. We are nowhere near where we should be and we are at the final phase. We have lost the plot.
The Regional Economic Communities (RECs) should be playing important roles as some of critical instruments of regional integration. The first intervention/stage of the Abuja Treaty was about ensuring that RECs are in place where they did not exist and improve the existing ones. RECs are the building blocks of continental integration and are supposed to create conducive environments for the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
Because of the inability to strengthen RECs and improve socio-economic development in each subregion, people move to parts of the subregions that appear to provide better prospects. This has happened with Nigerians going to Ghana and Burkinabe moving to Ivory Coast, to mention some of intra-African migration trends.
The approach followed towards deepening Africa’s integration has not worked well because Africa appears to have followed what Europe did in its own integration process. The economistic approach to regional integration which preoccupies itself with market integration, which is what Europe pursued, cannot work – and has not worked – in Africa for many reasons.
It is in this context that some have been arguing for developmental regionalism as an anchor for African continental integration as it goes beyond simply the reduction of tariffs. RECs should be ensuring that there is balance: it should not be that one or a few of the countries in the entire subregion provide economic opportunities.
The alternative, as argued elsewhere, could be to agree on regional hegemons in each of Africa’s subregions. Through regional hegemons (viz. a country to lead socio-economic development in a subregion) the whole subregion should gradually improve prospects and opportunities for the entire subregion.
Developmental regionalism is contrary to the market integration model and gradual integration that has been advocated since independence. The gradualist approach has not been to the benefit of Africa and Africans.
Developmental regionalism calls for strong political institutions in the continent. A political federation of a single African nation would have been an ideal approach. To ensure that a political federation is realized, more efforts grounded in pan-African unity must be pursued.
Needless to say, the political federation should be underpinned by a better philosophical approach to socio-economic development in the context of a development paradigm/model. I have argued for a modified form of communalism as that philosophical approach with the main aspects of a new model such as robust social policies, effective industrial policies, entrepreneurship, state ownership and ultimately, intra-African trade. Each of these aspects would need to be designed carefully and rigorously implemented.
African leaders and the African Union through the Abuja Treaty, the AU Constitutive Act, the Accra Declaration, and the AU Agenda 2063 seem to agree that political unity is imperative for a prosperous Africa. However, for them political unity (federal or confederate) is based or ought to follow economic integration.
This perspective as demonstrated by the failure to effectively implement the Abuja Treaty has undermined continental unity and perpetuated the linear integration model. To sustainably improve socio-economic development in Africa, the RECs should be more effective. With fully functioning subregions, and ultimately a fully functional continent, we will not have to worry about intra-African migration.
As a parting shot, the AU through its various institutions such as the Pan-African Parliament, the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights, the African Union Development Agency, the AU Peace and Security Council and the African Peer Review Mechanism ought to be working towards addressing challenges that have resulted to a suboptimal continent.
Professor Gumede is Deputy Vice Chancellor: Teaching and Learning at Durban University of Technology. Prof Gumede writes in his personal capacity.
Pictured: Professor Vusi Gumede.
Source: Sunday Tribune/IOL
