The Role of Regional Economic Communities in Africa’s Economic Integration: Prospects and Constraints

Abstract

Pledges such as Africa’s Declaration of Economic Cooperation and Development (ADECD) and Lagos Plan of Action (LPA) were established to build consensus on the benefi ts of regional integration and to provide a formal rationale for the creation of Regional Economic Communities (RECs) by African states. Despite pessimistic scholarly assessments of African REC performance, their shared objectives should facilitate the task of creating a continental economic community. Actually, African RECs show noteworthy progress in some areas but they remain hampered by constraints such as overlapping memberships, weak policy coordination, harmonisation and fragile political commitment.