THE CHALLENGE of overlapping membership
among African regions comes under scrutiny in
October as leaders of three trade blocs meet to
find common ground on trade, customs and infrastructure
development.
Uganda hosts the joint summit of SADC, the
Common Market of East and Southern Africa
(COMESA) and the East African Community
(EAC) on 20 October.
Membership overlaps exist SADC, COMESA
and EAC, and all three organisations plan to create
customs unions, a situation that presents
technical challenges as a country cannot belong
to more than one customs union.
Eight SADC members -- the Democratic Republic
of Congo, Malawi, Mauritius, Madagascar,
Seychelles, Swaziland, Zambia and
Zimbabwe -- also belong to COMESA, while
Angola is a member of the Economic Community
of Central African States and the United Republic of Tanzania belongs to the East
African Community.
With Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South
Africa and Swaziland being members of the
Southern African Customs Union (SACU), only
one out of the 15 SADC Member States is a member
of a single Regional Economic Community –
and that is Mozambique.
Yet SADC, COMESAand EAC either plan to create
customs unions or have already declared one.
Since all SACU members belong to SADC, it
does not present much of a technical problem as
the SACU arrangement automatically falls away
with the creation of a SADC Customs Union.
However, real problems exist between SADC
countries' membership to either COMESA or the
EAC. The tripartite summit will address some of
these challenges and possibly recommend a
framework that would allow for the creation of a
bigger FTA and Customs Union.
SADC began this process
with the launch of a Free Trade
Area (FTA) at the 28th Summit
held in South Africa in August,
marking a major achievement
in its 28-year history.
Formed in 1980 and transformed
in 1992 to the present
Southern African Development
Community, SADC has embarked
on several ambitious regional
integration projects, in
areas such as trade, infrastructure,
food security, human and
social development, as well as
politics, defence and security,
all intended to bring about economic
prosperity, peace and security
to its 250 million citizens.
Trade has been singled out
as the intervention with the
greatest potential to address
southern Africa's biggest challenge
- poverty.
SADC plans include the
launch of the FTA as the initial
step in the trade integration trajectory,
moving incrementally
to establish a Customs Union in
2010, a Common Market by
2015 and a Monetary Union by
2016. A regional central bank
and a common currency are expected
in 2018.
Thus by launching the FTA
on SADC Day, 17 August,
southern African leaders
demonstrated their will to deliver
a better life to the millions
of citizens as acknowledged
by the host, South
African President Thabo
Mbeki who took over the rotating
SADC chair at the twoday
Summit in Johannesburg.
"The challenge facing our
region during this era is to do
extraordinary things so as to
build the Free Trade Area
and consolidate its gains
for the mutual benefit
of the region's
economies and development,"
Mbeki said.
A key challenge facing the
region is infrastructure development.
Better road and rail
networks are necessary to facilitate
the cross-border flow
of goods and services. Current
road and rail networks do not
adequately support effective
intra-regional trade.
An Infrastructure Master
Plan is being developed to address
this shortcoming.
While the FTA directly addresses
the question of tariffs
insofar as it allows for 85 percent
of traded goods to be
duty free, Member States still
need to tackle the challenge of
non-tariff barriers such as restrictive
entry border requirements
which are counter to
the spirit of free trade.
Other challenges are on the
supply side of trade where the
private sector would be called
upon to improve productivity
if they are to remain competitive
in the regional market.
Such competition, while it
may have negative implications
on employment in smaller
and weaker economies, is
likely to bring in cheaper alternatives,
from the consumer's
point of view.
The FTA was established
through the SADC Trade Protocol
whose implementation
began in the year 2000.
To date, 11 out of 15 SADC
Member States are applying
the protocol meaning that as
many as 170 million people in
those countries will immediately
benefit from the new
economic dispensation.
Malawi is expected to come
on board once current constitutional
challenges affecting the
budgeting process are over. Angola
and the DRC have asked
for more time before they join
the FTA, and Seychelles, which
rejoined SADC at the Summit,
will be expected to begin formalities
soon to become a
member of the FTA.
Member States are expected
to harmonise their national
trade policies with all the provisions
of the Trade Protocol if
the FTA is to be successfully
implemented.
The 19-member COMESA,
which launched its FTA in
2004, plans to declare a customs
union by December this
year. The EAC declared its
customs union in 2005.
In any case, regional economic
communities are building
blocks of the envisaged
African Economic Community
(AEC).
If the three sub-regions,
spanning from Cape to Cairo,
can find common ground regarding
trade arrangements,
that would constitute a major
breakthrough insofar as the
African Union is seeking a
smooth and faster route towards
the AEC.
Not only do Member States
face problems with multiple
memberships when it comes
to trade, but a plethora of
challenges in other areas.
In the case of SADC,
COMESA and the EAC, overlaps
exist in other areas such
as infrastructure as well as
challenges arising from time
and financial obligations as regards
membership contributions,
attendance at meetings
as well as implementation of
several other regional integration
programmes.
Thus the tripartite summit
will seek to find a joint approach
to implement regional
telecommunications networks
based on the COMESA
Comtel Project, the SADC Regional
Information Infrastructure
Project as well as a
harmonized approach to the
implementation of the
NEPAD Broadband East
African Submarine Cable
(EASSY) Project. The latter
will facilitate connectivity
with North Africa, the
Oceanic Islands and the rest
of the world.
The three sub-regions are
expected to discuss how best
to accelerate the implementation
of inter-connector projects
under the auspices of the
Southern African Power Pool
(SAPP) and the East African
Power Pool.
A Tripartite Task Force involving
the three trade blocs
has been holding meetings
for more than a year in
preparation for the joint summit.
