“Towards
an Integrated, Peaceful and Prosperous Africa: The AU in
Perspective”
(A
GNA feature by Mohammed Nurudeen Issahaq)
Accra, Sept. 15, GNA - The vision of a
united, peaceful and prosperous Africa has been a long
cherished but elusive ideal whose early advocates included
Marcus Garvey; George Padmore; W.E.B. DuBois; Kwame Nkrumah
of Ghana, Haile Selassie of Ethiopia; Gamel Abdul-Nasser of
Egypt and Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, among others.
The idea found expression in the establishment of the Union
of African States (UAS), an early Pan-Africanist confederacy
initiated at the dawn of the 1960s, which provided
foundations for the creation of the Organisation of African
Unity (OAU) on May 25, 1963.
In Africa’s post-independence era, the OAU and other earlier
regional groups, apparently preoccupied with the task of
nation-building and concerned more about protecting their
newly-won sovereignty, did not give much attention to the
promotion of economic and social interaction among African
countries, the majority of them still preferring the cozy
convenience of continued dependence on their former colonial
rulers.
However, driven by the exigencies of contemporary times
notably globalization and the proliferation of regional
trade blocs around the world, African leaders have since the
early 1990s, pursued the goal of integration with renewed
vigour. In the face of these developments, and confronted by
harsh realities such as low per capita income, low
productivity, slow pace of development and fundamentally
fragile economies, African nations came to the realisation
that continuing to stand or act individually on the
increasingly volatile global, socio-politico-economic arena
could only spell their doom.
The paradox of Africa is that it is one continent endowed
with abundant natural and human resources, yet it is also
the most impoverished region of the world. About half of
Africa’s one billion inhabitants currently live on less than
$1.00 per day.
After being mentioned in passing at various continental
forums, the idea of creating an African Union (AU) along the
same lines as the European Union (EU) was vigorously revived
in the mid-1990s, this time spearheaded by the Libyan
Leader, Muammar al-Qaddafi. The move was concretized with
the adoption of the Sirte Declaration at a conference of OAU
Heads of State and Government in the Libyan town of Sirte on
September 9, 1999, calling for the creation of an African
Union.
Although established in 2001, the AU was formally
inaugurated to replace the OAU on July 9, 2002 in Durban,
South Africa. The birth of the AU was hailed with hope and
euphoria across the African continent, as well as among
well-wishers and people of African descent throughout the
world. To a large extent, the event was regarded as a
re-awakening of the Pan-Africanist dream. More importantly,
it was also seen as a clarion call to end Africa’s nightmare
of poverty and underdevelopment.
At its inauguration in 2002, the AU set itself a 10-year
grace period, dubbed the ‘period of stabilization,’ within
which it would turn things around and set Africa on the path
to sustainable development. Among other benefits,
integration was expected to bring along prospects such as
the opening up of larger regional markets for African
producers and consumers. The Union has set as its primary
targets the acceleration of economic, political and social
integration of Africa, with the establishment of a United
States of Africa as its ultimate goal. It also places
premium on the promotion of human rights, as well as the
entrenchment of democracy and good governance on the African
continent.
Challenges:
Indeed the objectives of the AU are lofty, and its benefits
immense, but Africa’s road to integration is fraught with
formidable challenges.
Seven years after its inauguration, the AU is yet to put its
act together. The vast majority of Africa’s population is
yet to know about the AU and to feel its impact in their
everyday lives. The momentum, the spark that is needed to
ignite the flame of integration has obviously not occurred
yet because apart from the routine conferences, things are a
bit too quiet for comfort on the AU front.
The impediments confronting the Union are both externally
and internally generated – bad governance, huge foreign
debts, crushing poverty and endemic armed conflicts, which
together with a myriad of other constraints; present a
formidable threat to the attainment of the ideal of a
unified Continent. The dilemma posed by the dichotomy
between state sovereignty and regional integration is
another obstacle that must be surmounted.
There are, also, the problems created by territorial
boundaries. Travelling across the border of one African
country to the next remains a nightmare, with numerous road
checkpoints where ordinary travellers and traders routinely
have to pay bribes to security personnel on duty in order to
get through. This does not only create a disincentive but is
also a direct contravention of the principle of free
movement of people, goods and capital as enshrined in the
charters of both the AU and the Economic Community of West
African States (ECOWAS).
By far the most outstanding and most crucial challenge
confronting the AU and Africa’s quest for integration,
however, is the apparent non-performance of the various
Regional Economic Communities (RECs) on the Continent. The
reactivation and harmonization of the RECs is what would
actually propel Africa’s integration process forward.
Considering
the large membership of the AU (53 nations) and other
peculiar characteristics of the African continent, the RECs
are essential building blocks or linchpins whose effective
function is a vital prerequisite to any successful
integration process on the Continent.
Unfortunately, long after the attainment of political
independence, African nations have not shaken their
colonial-era economic patterns, with each one of them
struggling to undo a long-standing legacy dominated by trade
with their former colonial rulers rather than with each
other. Whereas intra-African trade in 1998 stood at about
11.4 per cent, trade between African nations and the
industrialized world as a whole was 61.2 per cent during the
same period, out of which trade with the EU alone accounted
for more than 40 per cent. That picture remains pretty much
the same even today.
The issue of concern here is that the prevailing terms of
trade between Africa and the developed world, have been far
from favourable to African nations. One would expect the
development partners to demonstrate that they are true
partners by supporting African states to industrialise their
economies and set them on the path of sustainable
development, rather than dolling out aid money.
Significantly, however, the question of external support
from Europe and other parts of the developed world could
become a double-edged sword. On the African continent where
no effective supranational institutions exist yet, the
situation is further worsened by the division of the
countries into Francophone, Anglophone and Luxophone zones.
But the exclusive support of a ‘godfather’ in the African
scenario – France, Britain or Portugal, for instance – on
the basis of past colonial ties, tends to produce ‘zones of
influence’ which can only exacerbate the prevailing trend of
dependency on the Continent. Unfortunately, the ‘godfather
syndrome’ is already a reality in African politics. To a
large extent, it is responsible for the low level of trade
and cooperation among African countries and, for that
matter, the ineffectiveness of the RECs.
Europe’s Experience:
In the study of regional integration, the EU is said to have
become a living laboratory where any part of the world
embarking on the exercise of integration must necessarily
visit for a tip or two.
Therefore, it would be useful at this juncture to take a
brief glance at Europe’s experience. From the perspective of
history, the idea of European integration is rooted in the
tragic events of the World Wars, which set nations in Europe
on the search for lasting peace and co-operation, following
the devastation of their major cities and the destruction of
their economies during several years of battles. The search
for peace eventually led to the quest for integration. In
deed, the legacy of Jean Monnet, who is reputed as one of
the founding fathers of the European Community, lies in his
desire to remove forever the causes of war that periodically
tore Europe apart.
Identifying the lack of unity as the cause of strife between
European states, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman in
his May 9, 1950 declaration in Paris went on to table the
French Government’s proposal which placed Franco-German
production of coal and steel under a common ‘high
authority’, and which eventually led to the formation of the
European Coal and Steel Commission (ECSC) in 1951.
Originally, the Commission comprised six countries - France,
Italy, the Federal Republic of Germany, Belgium, The
Netherlands, and Luxembourg. It was envisaged that this move
would bring about a common cause or unity of purpose, thus
providing the foundation for a deeper collaboration between
countries, “whose conflicting interests have for a long time
kept them bloodily engaged”.
About six decades down the lane, the EU has not only
expanded in terms of membership (currently 28 nations) but
has also become the world’s most successful example of
regional integration, reaping the benefits (as well as
challenges) that come along with a virtually borderless
Continent and a huge market.
The EU approach to integration, according to experts, is in
line with Functionalist thought, which places emphasis on
cooperation in the economic, social, and technological
spheres. It draws a clear distinction between the
utilitarian welfare aspects of inter-state relations, and
the political aspects dealing with law and order, security
and sovereignty. The functionalist approach seeks to shift
emphasis from political issues which divide, to those social
issues in which the interest of the people is plainly
identical and collective. “…shift the emphasis from power to
problem and purpose”, in the words of Ernst Haas [1964]. By
such a strategy it is both essential and possible to replace
mutual suspicion with growing trust that would promote
peaceful relations and extend co-operation to many more
sectors than those intended originally.
The Here and Now:
Deutsch argued that groups of countries would integrate or
come together to form unions when they are confronted with a
common threat (such as the devastating inter-state wars in
the case of Europe). Although in Africa’s particular
circumstances there is no history of bloody inter-state
conflicts, there is the combined scourge of poverty, hunger
and disease. Arguably, the devastation and misery caused by
these conditions surpass that experienced by Europe in the
two World Wars and should, therefore, suffice as a
motivating factor or catalyst to bring African countries
together to seek common solutions to the problems that
afflict their people.
The agricultural sector is one area that could provide a
springboard for the much needed activation of the RECs, as
well as the heightened level of economic cooperation that
has so far eluded the Continent. African countries could
begin integrating their economies in the agricultural sector
since they are all essentially agrarian – just in the same
way as European integration started from the industrial
sector with the pooling of coal and steel production. It
would be prudent to pursue of a policy similar to the EU’s
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which would place emphasis
on joint action in the agricultural sector and
agro-processing or adding value to agricultural produce.
At a meeting in Sirte, Libya in July 2009, leaders of the
African Union (AU) rightly emphasized the need for increased
collaboration in the agricultural sector as the Continent’s
way out of the current global economic crisis. Committing
more resources to agriculture would not only enable them to
make food available for the teeming population, but also
generate jobs for the unemployed if pursued with the
requisite commitment and consistency. The Sirte decision,
therefore, is one line of action the Heads of State and
Government should pursue without any further delay.
Each region on the Continent could maximize the production
of specific agricultural commodities based on the principle
of comparative advantage, thereby preparing the terrain for
effective collaboration amongst the various RECs on the
Continent. In addition to enhancing food self-sufficiency,
the system of interdependence thus created would help to
accelerate the Continent’s integration process. Why, for
instance, does Mali have to import palm oil from Indonesia
for industrial use when it could get the commodity from
Nigeria at a comparatively cheaper cost? That is the kind of
situation the RECs are meant to rectify so as to pave the
way for increased intra-African trade and collaboration.
The greatest challenge of this era is for African
Governments to demonstrate in practical terms their
readiness to embark on a deliberate and sustained plan to
transfer elements of state sovereignty to the newly
established AU supranational institutions. Nationalism and
integration are incompatible. The issue of political will on
the part of African Leaders is, therefore, very essential,
as the successful devolution of power from the national to
supranational institutions would depend on their active and
voluntary cooperation.
Beginning from the economic front, it is possible for
governments to work towards a united Africa through the
development of common institutions, the progressive fusion
of national economies, the removal of tariffs and trade
barriers amongst them, the creation of a common market and
the progressive harmonization of their social policies.
The apparent absence of intellectual interest in Africa’s
integration process is another inhibiting factor as far as
the AU’s progress is concerned. The theorizing and scholarly
debates that characterized the evolution of European
integration, and which served to refine the process, is
completely absent in Africa’s case. Academicians and
scholars in every part of the Continent need to come out
with published works to generate healthy debates and sustain
the interest of the citizenry in the integration process.
Critics also point out the absence of committed technocrats
– an African ‘Jean Monnet’ or ‘David Mitranny’ – who would
provide the vital inspiration and guidance that would
accelerate the Continent’s integration process.
The creation of strong/viable institutions,
steadfast/consistent policy implementation, safeguarding the
Continent’s internal peace/stability on a sustainable basis,
and adopting a progressive culture of commitment to the
supreme interest of the Union, are some key lessons from the
EU experience that the AU must learn.
Reducing the dependency on foreign aid, as well as improving
the governance and conflict resolution mechanisms, are the
other important steps to a successful integration and a
prosperous Africa, but these should be pursued at a pace
that is both ambitious and realistic.
European integration began with the joint production of coal
and steel, which with time spilled over into cooperation in
other sectors including security and defence. In Africa the
manufacturing base is almost non-existent but this
deficiency can be turned into an opportunity if African
Governments unanimously declared an industrial revolution
and worked collectively and consistently towards its
realization. From whatever angle one looks at the issue of
African unity, one cannot but conclude that getting the RECs
and other essential structures/institutions functioning
efficiently and effectively before moving on to the ultimate
goal of Union Government, or United States of Africa, seems
to be a more logical arrangement.
GNA
