AN EVALUATION OF IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ABUJA TREATY AND THE AFRICAN INTEGRATION PROCESS (2002-2012)

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AN EVALUATION OF IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ABUJA TREATY AND THE AFRICAN INTEGRATION PROCESS (2002-2012)

Abstract:

This study evaluates the slow implementation of the Abuja Treaty of 1991 which is to conclude in the year 2028 without the creation of a Free Trade Area in 2011, the treaty which is also called the AEC Treaty as an instrument/ a working agreement for the formation of an African Economic Community (AEC). The Treaty which came into force in 1994 was indicative of renewed consensus and commitment of the Continent‘s leadership to pursue the economic integration of the continent for growth and development. This is against the background of the failure of earlier framework, namely the Lagos Plan of Action, ratified-Final Act of Lagos of 1980 that mainly envisaged import substitution industrialization for African States‘ economies. On the other hand, the AEC Treaty envisaged a stage-by-stage formation of an African Economic Community to conclude by 2028, under the supervision of the African Union (AU) Commission in conjunction with the Member States and the Regional Economic Communities (RECs). This integration process is explained in the theories of functionalism and that of regional economic integration. However, barely 14 years to the targeted date of a continental union, a free trade area that was to be established by now has not been established. It broadly explores the dynamic factors that contribute to the slow pace of implementation of African integration plan, despite the consensus among the continent‘s leaderships as embodied in the Abuja Treaty and now in the AU‘s Constitutive Act. Using interpretive-qualitative analysis of data drawn from both primary and secondary sources, records of interviews and field notes from a three-month research internship within the African Union Commission, and as a participant observer; the study reveals that mostly, non-complementarities of trade between the African states and the international market, the divergence of member governments‘ interests to surrender elements of their sovereignty, the AU‘s reliance on regional economic communities (RECs) that are largely ineffective as building blocks, institutional dysfunction within the AU Commission, which is tasked with the coordination of the implementation of the treaty, and the lack of popular participation in the integration process contributes to the slow progress in the realization of the AEC on the timeline. The study therefore recommends concrete programmes and projects based on comparative advantage in trade complementarity of economies of member states and popular participation, a precondition for an effective integration process and indeed development in Africa.

AN EVALUATION OF IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ABUJA TREATY AND THE AFRICAN INTEGRATION PROCESS (2002-2012)

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