Integration of Regional Economic Communities as Panacea for Africa’s Economic Growth: Lessons from Comparative Models
Integration of Regional Economic Communities as Panacea for Africa’s Economic Growth: Lessons from Comparative Models

Summary/Abstract: This paper reinforces the thesis that integration of Africa’s Regional EconomicCommunities (RECs) is essential for Africa’s economic growth. It analyses the African Union’scurrent strategy towards the integration of the Regional Economic Communities across the continent.Its findings reveal that the African Union has made several efforts to promote full economicintegration within the Regional Economic Communities including by way of treaties and Protocols.Without undermining the very modest gains to the economic growth of Africa, resulting from theseapproaches, available literature suggests that there are many challenges facing the integration ofRegional Economic Communities. The challenges include apathy, divided loyalty and suspicionamong members. The consequence of these challenges has been slow and minimal economicintegration over the years. The paper argues that for an effective integration of economies across theAfrican Continent, a comparative analysis of key models of the European and Asian continents offervaluable lessons. This paper draws from these two models to interrogate the stalling AU integrationmodel and concludes by recommending how some of the manifold challenges facing the fulleconomic integration of RECs across Africa can be eliminated.

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