The Revival of Regional Integration In Africa
p. 43-77
Full text
Introduction
1The need for regional integration in Africa has never seemed more compelling, however the numerous programmes and institutions have achieved very little since independence.
2Regionalization reveals itself in sub-Saharan Africa through complex and often conflicting trends of interaction. Commitment to regional integration in Africa has been constrained by a highly ambivalent critique of the colonial heritage. At independence, the leaders of the new states readily acknowledged the disastrous effects of the partition of the continent, but were reluctant, if not totally unwilling, to support policies likely to restrain state sovereignty and, consecutively, their power.
The stability of existing boundary lines
3Nearly forty years after independence, the boundary lines inherited from the colonial period remain unchanged, despite the intractable problems that they cause. The frequently mentioned issue of their forceful imposition is not as significant as it may seem, since this is no less specific to Africa than to most European or Latin American boundaries. As long as the post-Wesphalian territorial state model remains the international norm, the replacement of pre-colonial frontiers by standardized ‘linear-boundaries’1 will remain a dominant and irresistible trend. In Africa, more than anywhere else in the world, the imposition of boundary lines has clearly had disastrous economic, social and human consequences. It is responsible for the severe physical impediments to the unification of the territory of such states as Congo-Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville, Senegal and Gambia, while several states in the Sahel and southern African region face the chronic problem of being landlocked. Worse still, in a number of African states, resources are chronically insufficient, due to an unfavourable ecological and human environment. This combination of factors contributes to the description of African states as quasi- or failed states, owing to their difficulty in meeting the criteria usually associated with international sovereignty.2
4At the time of independence, the break-up of most of the federations established during the colonial period, suddenly highlighted the negative consequences of the segmentation and the intrinsically problematic viability of the political divisions and economic circuits inherited from the colonial period. Whether violent or negotiated, the dissolution processes meant the disappearance of the fiscal and excise redistribution mechanisms which had been the raison d’être of structures like the Afrique Occidentale Française (AOF), the Afrique Equatoriale Française (AEF), the Central African Federation or even, at a later stage the East African Community. The continent had never been so deeply segmented as when, in 1963, the OAU Charter endorsed and legitimized the territorial status quo.3
5By the end of the Cold War, in 1989, non-African powers attached little importance to the preservation of African boundary lines. In sub-Saharan Africa, as in Eastern or Central Europe, superpowers could no longer be considered as unambiguous agents of boundary and regime stability,4 at a time when authoritarian regimes were being confronted with renewed demands for autonomy. The intangibility principle appeared seriously undermined when, following the referendum held in May 1993, Eritrea gained independence after several decades of a national war of liberation. Six years later, this remains the only example of a formal reorganization of any part of the political map of the continent, despite an international environment characterized by a new sensitivity to demands for autonomy and respect for group rights as a whole. The massive transformation of the map of Africa predicted by some analysts is still awaited.
6Secessionist attempts, as witnessed in Nigeria (Biafra), Congo-Kinshasa (Katanga), or currently in the Sudan, are the exception in Africa. Civil unrest, violence and even rebellion remain geared towards the achievement of ‘national’ objectives — namely the improvement of access to the state and its resources — not the overthrow of established regimes. Irridentism, as illustrated by pan-Somali nationalism, is also atypical. The case of the Tuaregs of Niger, Mali or Mauritania is worth noting in this respect : they have always expressed their political demands within their respective national contexts despite their nomadic way of life, in which is embedded a strong regionalist perspective.
7The legitimacy of the partition lines established by the colonialists is much stronger than public speeches or state problems of territorial control would let one imagine. Demands for boundary adjustments have been on the increase since the early 1990s, but they all revolve around the clarification or reestablishment of colonial partition lines that were once erased, or transformed into internal administrative boundaries. The above mentioned case of Eritrea’s independence may be interpreted as the re-establishment of the frontier-line which separated this former Italian colony from Ethiopia, until it was invaded by Mussolini’ s troops in 1936. In the Horn, the Somali conflict has provoked a de facto return to the boundary which existed between the ex-British Somaliland and the ex-Italian Somalia until they merged in 1960. The ex-post legitimation of this colonial boundary line is especially surprising, when it is recalled how the Somali state was commonly described in the 1980s as a mono-ethnic state where people could trace their descent to a common ancestor resulting in a powerful web of kinship lies, making them a community of brothers, cousins and kinsmen5. Further to the south, the United Republic of Tanzania — created in 1964 through the unification of Tanganyika (a former German colony) and Zanzibar (a former British protectorate) — has been confronted with demands for a separate government/constitution for the mainland. In West Africa, the Saharawi independence movement has been fighting for several decades to secure international recognition of a boundary line which has undisputed colonial origins. Elsewhere in the sub-region, agitation in Senegal’s Casamance and in the western part of Cameroon, is rooted in the assertion of identity claims drawn from two distinct colonial and linguistic legacies – Portuguese in the first case, British in the second.
8The territorial stability of the post-colonial African states has proved greater than many imagined, yet the future of the pluri-ethnic and strongly territorialized state-model introduced by the colonial rulers remains shrouded in uncertainty. New patterns of state/society interactions are clearly emerging, shaped by changes in the states’ institutional and regulatory capacities, the configuration of ethno-regional interactions, the nature of available resources, and the patterns of territorial control. Attempts to regulate geo-ethnic interests, and to ensure territorial continuity through a codification of group rights and equitable access to resources are few, and not without their own problems, as illustrated by the boomerang effects of the Nigerian consociational model6 and South Africa’s more recent, yet equaily innovative, approach to post-apartheid reconstruction. All too often, the decline of available resources contributes to the erosion of the states’ monopoly over public violence, to the benefit of private agents. Circumstantial pressure may then force incumbent leaders to accept compromises which result in an increasingly fragmented exercise of national sovereignty, due to its outright lease to a trusted clientèle, or capture by warlords. In Mobutu’s Zaïre, the state has opted out and simply ignores much of what is going on7. One of the outcomes has been the transformation of Congo-Kinshasa into an archipelago state where direct involvement is confined to the economically more attractive areas.8
9In West Africa, the political and economic fragmentation which has resulted in numerous boundary lines, is being used and transformed into a comparative advantage. Managing frontier disparities on a rent-seeking basis has become a vital component of the policy orientations of Benin, Togo, Gambia, Niger and, to a lesser extent, Chad. The warehouse-state syndrome, as described by Igue & Soulé in their 1992 case-study of the Benin Republic, epitomizes the extensive growth of state-backed ‘illegal’ transactions. In Southern Africa, the limited territorial control exerted by the Angolan regime contributes to a deterritorialization of the state, further accentuated by its reliance on off-shore oil production and revenue. In Somalia, pan-Somali nationalism has dissolved into particularly destructive forms of segmentary nationalism,9 with the result of the disintegration of the state.
10Max Weber’s classical definition of the state cannot apply in numerous parts of the continent : in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo-Kinshasa, Angola or Somalia, the state is no longer the sole agency which possesses a monopoly over legitimate violence. The diversification of state/society relations does not involve any formal challenge to existing boundary lines, yet they support new patterns of regional interaction that undermine territorial control and the efficiency of institutional attempts to promote regional integration.
Regionalization and globalization
11Often, the revival of regionalism during the late 1980s had little to do with the numerous international organizations that were supposed to promote its development. The strongly institutionalized component of the regional integration process in Europe was the exception. Elsewhere, the drive towards the polarization of international trade on a regional basis was primarily associated with the behaviour of micro-actors, in a context energized by the progress of multilateralism, and the generalization of adjustment and deregulation policies. The main outcome of this powerful trend was the concentration of world trade and investment around three regional areas : North America, the European Union (46 % of world trade in 1992) and Asia-Pacific.
12Institution-building was then encouraged by fears of the re-emergence of protectionism on a regional basis. Regional agreements mushroomed, prompted by the uncertain outcome of the Uruguay Round negotiations, and apprehensions about a possible transformation of the European Union (EU) into a ‘fortress Europe’. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain gave a renewed impulse to the tendency to emphasize economic interactions at the expense of political and strategic collaboration.
13In a number of cases, the revival of regionalism meant reforming the so-called ‘first-generation’ regional organizations, which were established in the 1960s to promote integration through import-substitution strategies and ‘delinking’ from the global market. More frequently, regionalization involved the creation of new groupings, such as the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) and the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) in the Americas ; the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) and the Free Trade Agreement of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Asia. In Europe, the expansion and deepening of EU integration prompted the formation of the European Economic Area (EEA). In 1991, member-states of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) joined the move and signed the Treaty of Abuja which contained measures for the establishment of a transcontinental African Economic Community (AEC).
14Far from being disposed towards the formation of mutually exclusive regional integration groupings, this probes NAS strongly outward-oriented. Regionalization also meant the opening of discussions towards the enlargement of existing institutions, and the conclusion of inter-regional agreements. This kaleidoscopic interplay between institutions, identities and socio-political factors accounts for the polymorphous nature of the so-called new regionalization process. Closely tied to the advancement of globalization, the regionalization process often endorsed previously existing international economic links between neighbouring states. Regionalization represented, as in Europe or North America, an opportunity to establish a more appropriate framework for absorbing the pressures of multilateralism and globalization. Elsewhere, as in Asia or in Africa, the regionalization process was primarily associated with the trade and investment strategies of private agents who operated in the absence of – or, as in Africa, in opposition to – institutionalized regional structures. The specific nature of the regionalization process in Africa results from this ambivalent relationship between regionalization, as impelled by private agents, and the institutionalized patterns of regionalization — a distinction which recalls that between de jure and de facto regionalism.10
The disappointing achievements of regional institutions
15The results achieved by the numerous inter-governmental organizations (IGOs) meant to promote regional cooperation or integration are a far cry from the objectives assigned to them in their founding charters. Seven years after the adoption of the Abuja Plan (OAU, 1991), there is no evidence that its programme towards the establishment of a continental common market by 2025 is being implemented.
16The traumatic dissolution of nearly all the regional entities established during the colonial period (Nigeria is the exception) left bitter legacies and hampered-moves to revive regional cooperation and integration. In West Africa, it was not until 1972 that the presidents of Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal were able to reconcile their differences and establish the purely francophone Economic Community of West Africa.11
17In Southern and Eastern Africa, regional cooperation was also adversely affected by bitter memories of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and, later, the experience of the East African Community (EAC). It was the pressure generated by South Africa’s Constellation of South African States (CONSAS) project that prompted the establishment of the Southern Africa Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) in 1981. SADCC’s initial concern was how to attract international aid for projects with a regional component, so as to reduce dependency of member states on South Africa. The organization only paid lip service to the objective of regional integration until political change in South Africa and the pressure of donors imposed a change of perspective. This resulted in the adoption of the 1992 Windhoek Treaty, whereby the Southern Africa Development Coordination Conference was transformed into a Southern Africa Development Community (SADC).
18Two years later, in November 1994, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania agreed to revive the common services which were in operation until the dissolution of the EAC in 1977.
19The overall trend towards a transformation of the ambitious regional integration schemes into more modest functional cooperation programmes is a direct consequence of the member-states’ reluctance to undertake transfers of sovereignty. The states’ lack of political and financial internalization of regional integration commitments has often been denounced, but this should not be surprising in a context where a good number of states are confronted with severe ‘domestic’ integration problems.
20The most tangible achievements of regional cooperation are often to be seen in the infrastructure and telecommunications sectors. In this, as in other areas of functional cooperation, programmes have been largely donor-driven, due to the limited financial commitment by member states. Well known examples of such institutions are the Comité permanent inter-Etats de lutte contre la sécheresse au Sahel (CILSS), the ex-SADCC, the Organization de la mise en valeur du fleuve Sénégal (OMVS), the Kagera Basin Organization (KBO) or, more modestly, the Agence pour la sécurité de la navigation en Afrique et à Madagascar (ASECNA), the Conseil africain et malgache de l’enseignement supérieur (CAMES) or the African Postal Union (AFP). The inter-governmental, technocratic and explicitly outward-looking nature of these associations has often been the very basis of their success. The clearly defined commitment required for these schemes appeals far more to member-states and external donors than the open-ended integration projects launched within broader institutions. It should be added that sectoral cooperation has proved most effective when it is able to achieve a regionally-focused coordination of the commitments of the different regional actors, as exemplified by CILSS and the ex-SADCC.
21The Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and the Franc Zone are the only African regional institutions where integration exists. This is due to the centralized management of tariffs and revenue distribution, in the first case, and to joint monetary policies in the second. These two organizations, however, represent another illustration of the weak internalization of regional integration by the member states of regional IGOs.
22Integration within the SACU is the result of the continuity in arrangements that date back to the colonial period. SACU uses a common external tariff to redistribute customs and excise revenue and the free movement of goods and services (though not of labour) between South Africa and the BLSN (Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia) states. Implementation of SACU’s redistribution formula is tied to the use of the South African rand as a common currency. Agreements between SACU member states can be traced back to 1889, and were renegotiated in 1969 to account for the independence of the BLS states.
23Monetary integration within the Franc Zone was also achieved through the adaptation of institutional arrangements which existed before independence between France and its colonies. The 14 member-states of the zone are regrouped within two monetary unions : the Union économique et monétaire de l’ouest africain (UEMOA) and the Communauté économique et monétaire d’Afrique centrale (CEMAC). These unions form the world’s largest ‘complete’ monetary union.12 Member states share a fully convertible currency issued by a supranational bank, which also oversees the operations account (compte d’opération) maintained with the French treasury in Paris. The fixed parity of the CFA to the French franc and the CFA’s free (until 1 August 1993) and unlimited convertibility, form the two pillars of a relationship stabilized and dominated, though not fully controlled, by France. Indeed, patterns of interaction, which initially were deeply influenced by the colonial institutional arrangements, have been superseded since 1972-1973 by reforms which reduced the unions’ dependency on France and increased the member states’ borrowing capacities.13
24Within the Franc Zone, a programme of reforms was launched in 1991, with the initial ambition to avoid a devaluation of the CFA through regionally-based adjustment policies. This resulted in the creation of the Conférence Interafricaine des Marchés d’Assurance (CIMA) in 1992, followed a year later by the Conférence Interafricaine de Prévoyance Sociale (CIPRES) and the Organisation pour l’Harmonisation du Droit des Affaires en Afrique (OHADA). These ambitious programmes were launched to promote integration through the harmonization of legal instruments in the fields of insurance, social welfare and business law.
25Although these programmes proved unable to avoid the devaluation of the CFA in January 1994, they may have mitigated against the break-up of the Franc Zone. Indeed, the devaluation of the CFA was accompanied by the replacement of existing francophone regional institutions (CEAO in West Africa, and UDEAC in Central Africa) by the francophone West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) and the Central African Economie and Monetary Community (CEMAC). The treaties establishing them were both signed in 1994, but UEMOA is the only one which has been ratified. The implementation of the UEMOA Treaty has, however, encountered a number of obstacles. The reluctance of member states to internalize integration constraints (including the convergence of financial and budgetary policies) is one reason ; another is the flawed conception of the CEMAC and UEMOA treaties. Both were born out of an explicit attempt to replicate the spirit of the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty on economic and monetary integration.14
26As they currently stand, the Franc Zone and SACU offer unparalleled examples of integration, but these are the result of the continuation of colonial arrangements, through uncompleted transfers of sovereignty at the time of independence. Integration neither involved a qualitative jump nor proceeded from any communautarisation of pre-existing national policies. The discipline required to pursue pre-existing integrative arrangements has never been fully internalized by national/state powers. It remains externally driven as a result of its control by core states, e.g., France and South Africa. France’s leading role within the Franc Zone is the basis for the treasury’s guarantee to the CFA. It is statutorily organized and codified with the result of clearly defined regulatory procedures.
27South Africa’s control over the definition of tariff policy and over the redistribution of customs revenues within SACU was totally unrestrained and secretive before 1994. The management of SACU took place outside any specific institutional framework, as part of the activities of the South African administration. A Secret Memorandum of Understanding attached to the 1969 agreement provided, and still provides, the legal basis for such a relationship. It stipulates that higher compensation is established for the price-raising effects of South African tariffs and other imports restrictive policies, in exchange for the loss of fiscal discretion resulting from the BLS acceptance of the South African tariffs and excise duty codes and provisions.
28Negotiations to reform SACU agreements were launched in late 1994, in the aftermath of the South African general election. The financial, economic and political stakes involved in the negotiations were more complex than anticipated. South Africa and the BLS states chose to retain the union and pursue the far more ambitious, yet uncertain, SADC programmes.15 Although negotiations were expected to last a few months, they still have not reached a conclusion three and a half years later.
29CEMAC, UEMOA, SACU and SADC have so far preserved a strong identity within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the broader sub-regional organizations which, according to the Abuja Plan of Action, are expected to spearhead progress towards an African Economic Community. The states overlapping affiliations to competing regional institutions are a source of tension and partly contribute to their mixed results.
30In the Maghreb and Central African sub-regions, the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) and CEEAC have not achieved any tangible results. The ECOWAS (Bach, 1997b), and COMESA (Leistner, 1997) — previously known as the Preferential Trade Agreement of Eastern and Southern Africa (PTA) — have managed to identify and implement several important sectoral cooperation programmes. The two organizations have made little progress towards market integration through sub-regional trade liberalization, but this is not surprising.
31All too often, assessments of de jure integration are perverted by the rhetoric of institution-building and so-called nascent implementation. This is not to deny that progress may have been achieved in the field of functional cooperation The simple truth is that one simply cannot see any sign of the qualitative leap which would differentiate their activities from those concerned with the mere promotion of sectoral cooperation. This legacy of unfulfilled pledges cannot be ignored, especially as the Abuja Treaty considers the revitalization of the regional integration as the preliminary step towards the establishment of a Pan-African Economic Community by the year 2025. The goals to be achieved and the strategy for their implementation have not changed since the adoption, in 1980, of the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA), which never went beyond the stage of institution-building. In actual fact, the LPA was assessed in 1990 by its own originators as a failure, due to its inability to effect any positive change on the deteriorating African economies :
There is no sub-regional integration process under way at this time. Sub-regional economic groupings in Africa... have not been able to make their impact felt. Where they have had an impact, it has been on balance negative [as a result], member states are providing financial support to agencies that make no significant contribution in terms of improving Africa s economic situation.16
32Featuring prominently among the reasons for this state of affairs was the unquestioned endorsement of the assumption that African boundary lines are arbitrary (due to their colonial origins) and costly impediments to the free flow of trade. Regional integration organizations have sought to promote market integration through trade liberalization programmes, however, they have not taken cognizance of the crucial importance of survival and accumulation strategies associated with cross-border trade or the management of frontier disparities. Simultaneous attempts at prioritizing outward-oriented adjustment policies have not achieved any substantive results either.
33African boundaries delineate and separate communities, but they simultaneously and paradoxically stimulate the development of cross-frontier transactions.17 Large population groups (and at times whole states), owe their capacity to survive to the semi-official or clandestine flows which thrive across boundaries. The failure of the states to address this issue, has meant that Africa’s sub-regional trade liberalization schemes have been doomed to failure.
Trans-State Regionalization
34Regionalization is at work on the African continent, but it is mostly occurring independently from state-centred regional integration programmes. In sub-Saharan Africa, the regionalization process is associated far more than in the case of the Asian economies, with the exploitation of boundary disparities and distortions on a rent-seeking basis. Border transactions are variously described as ‘informal’ or ‘unrecorded trade’ ; as the ‘underground’, ‘second’ or even the ‘real economy’ ; and of course as ‘smuggling’ or ‘re-exportation’. This proliferation of loosely overlapping descriptions reflects the kaleidoscopic morphology of trans-state regionalization (régionalisation transétatique). These concepts depict the processes of cross-border interactions which have their own distinctive features, although they combine elements of inter-state and transnational regionalization.
35Trans-state regionalization cannot be associated with an institutionalized process,18 although it is totally dependent on state policies and owes its prosperity to the involvement of state agents. The diversion of official circuits in favour of trans-state networks may result in decriminalizing state behaviour towards certain sectors of cross-border trade, but this never leads to their public endorsement since the profits are realized at the expense of the state(s) on either side of the border ; the rent-taking government must avoid at all costs a strict enforcement of its neighbour’s border. Unlike ‘regular’ cross-border trade, trans-state trade is not based on ecological complementarities and comparative advantages. Trans-state trade is dependent on opportunities created by tariff, fiscal and monetary discrepancies between neighbouring economies. Transactions range from basic commodities to sophisticated high tech products or even narcotics.
36Access to foreign currency has become an essential component of trans-state regionalization under the combined pressure of the states’ deepening financial difficulties and the purely national dimension of most structural adjustment programmes. Curtailing the costs incurred by trans-state flows between the Franc Zone and such countries as Nigeria, Ghana or Congo-Kinshasa was an essential component in the decision to suspend, on 2 August 1993, the convertibility of CFA banknotes outside the Franc Zone banking network. The leverage effect of the convertibility factor should not be exclusively tied to currency.
37Trans-state regional flows may equally develop, though on a lesser scale, on the exclusive basis of tariff and fiscal discrepancies as witnessed between the member-states of the Central (CEMAC) and West African (UEMOA) components of the Franc Zone. Poor transport facilities through the national outlets, as in Congo-Kinshasa, or political uncertainty, may also stimulate cross-border trans-actions.
38Pre-colonial links, i.e., the large populations of people who share the same primordial ties and who are highly visible on the border land, are frequently cited as reasons for the vitality of trans-state regionalization. As the colonized territories were progressively integrated into the metropolitan economies, competing communication systems and market centres developed. Distinct currency zones also emerged, while restrictive tariff policies attempted to discourage the entry of goods from rival colonial blocs. During the early phase of the partition process, European rulers also competed fiercely to establish their territorial claims, with the resulting effect that the populations established on the fringes of the imperial spheres of influence were often subject to intimidation and reprisals. Once the boundary lines were demarcated, the colonial administrations tried to restrict contact, including cattle rearers who habitually migrated with their herds to various pastures without regard to boundary lines or the borderline farmers whose farmlands may have been truncated. Caravan trade underwent an irresistible decline as a result of the imposition of new trade routes, and the introduction of tariffs designed to promote integration among the various component parts of the empire.
39Real as it was, the segregative and alienating impact of the partition had strong inbuilt limitations. The colonial rulers soon discovered that patrolling and ensuring the effective enforcement of inter-imperial boundary lines were impossible due to their sheer length. Competition and mutual suspicion among colonial powers prevented the adoption of harmonized policies against ‘illegal’ cross-border trade and migrations. As a result, boundary lines never proved much of a physical obstacle. Whenever attempts to control cross-border trade and migrations were made, they remained limited in duration, due to their cost, as much as to their ineffectiveness.
40Inter-imperial partition lines were porous, but they also materialized distinct administrative systems, with different pricing, monetary and tariff regimes. This prompted the development of ‘illicit’ trade which became synonymous with large profits... or at least small profits by quite a large number of people living along the borderland.19 Illicit transactions developed to the extent that, on each side of the boundary between Nigeria and Benin/Dahomey, entire villages abandoned traditional agriculture to engage in trade. Pre-existing patterns of social interaction underwent signifïcant changes, as profits drawn from transfrontier trade dwarfed previous sources of income. By 1945,
... nearly all young men living in frontier villages were in the business [of illicit trade] and in both areas smuggling had given rise to a class of wealthy men and women whose position could no longer be ignored in the affairs of their localities.20
41The composition and direction of this emerging trans-state trade varied and was dependent on such factors as import duties on manufactured goods, transport costs or cash crop producer prices. By the late 1950s, a fairly stable pattern existed in West Africa : the surprix (higher-than-world-market-prices) system implemented in the French colonies prompted farmers and middlemen from Gambia, Ghana or Nigeria to sell their cash crops across the border. In the British colonies, the imperial preference system meant cheaper imports of manufactured products and this created an incentive to clandestine re-exportation towards the neighbouring French and Belgian territories. Accordingly, industrial and electronic equipment, liquor, tobacco and paraffin lamps were imported into Senegal through the frontier with Gambia, while French wines, agricultural implements and fertilizers were clandestinely exported to the neighbouring British territory.21 Similarly, alcoholic drinks, tobacco and printed cloth stood foremost among the goods smuggled from Dahomey into Nigeria, while guns and gunpowder, and British-manufactured bicycles were acquired from Nigeria.22
42With the end of colonial rule, trans-state trade entered a new phase. The dissolution of the colonial federations (AOF, AEF, Rhodesia and Nyasaland, etc.) gave birth to an unprecedented array of customs, and fiscal and monetary regimes. Pre-existing customs or monetary agreements sometimes survived (e.g., SACU and the Franc Zone), but more often disappeared under the pressure of emerging national interests. This meant increasingly diverging tariff ; fiscal and monetary policies. The financial difficulties encountered by a growing number of African states, following the OPEC price increase in 1973, meant a collapse of official circuits in large parts of the continent and this created fertile ground for trans-state regionalization. Population groups who had come to rely on the state for health, housing, education, transport and marketing, were compelled to seek alternatives. Entire sectors of the society redeployed into the second economy, with the effect of an unprecedented boost to trans-state regionalization.
43Today, the so-called parallel and ‘illegal’ cross-border transactions contribute to a vital diversification of urban income sources and exert a buffer function when salaries undergo a sharp decline in real terms, or when public sector workers remain unpaid for substantial periods. The parallel circuits supply consumers with food, fuel and manufactured goods, while creating income-earning opportunities for women who augment their husbands’ salaries to a living wage through unlicensed trade. Farmers living in areas where the public sector services are no longer available, can find vital outlets for their production in the second economy, as well as pre-harvest cash advances essential to the maintenance of their families and the purchase of tools, seeds and other inputs.23
44The second economy and its trans-state regional networks however, can also serve as a vector of dispossession to the weak internal actors, while benefiting the stronger/richer international networks. The expansion of trans-state networks beyond the borderland areas is associated with the capacity of powerful patrons, motivated by accumulation strategies, to take advantage of farmers and urban dwellers confronted with severe situations of dispossession or hardship. The thesis of ‘communal redistribution’ through trans-state regional flows and the second economy is a populist myth.24 Access to the resources necessary to participate in the networks is extremely uneven and intensely competitive :
... the rich and powerful, and those who have jobs, have greater access than do the unemployed, the urban poor, and rural producers.25
45More importantly, farmers participate in the second economy ‘out of desperation rather than choice’. Indeed, MacGaffey concludes (with respect to Congo-Kinshasa) that if there is an element of social security in the patron-client relationship between traders and producers, it is a very crude one.
The deleterious impact of trans-state regionalization
46Far from being an incentive to the disappearance of existing boundary-lines, trans-state regionalization contributes to their preservation. Although trans-state regional lobbies have a strong interest in the preservation of good relations between neighbouring states, they are equally active in preventing the implementation of sub-regional programmes towards the liberalization of customs and tariff barriers.
47This paradox is clearly illustrated by the circumstances which surrounded the dissolution of the Senegambian Confederation (1982-1989), Africa’s only post-independence political integration experiment. The decision to establish the confederation was based on an agreement whereby Senegal was to guarantee the security of the Gambian regime (recently threatened by a coup d’état), in exchange for their progressive evolution towards an economic union.
48Since the 1970s, the Gambian government had actively encouraged the importation of goods which were either banned or attracted a high official tariff in Senegal and Guinea, and which were ‘illegally’ re-exported into Senegal and Guinea. Trans-state trade took advantage of fiscal, excise and customs disparities which the rent-seeking policy of the Gambian government carefully preserved. From Dakar’s point of view, the Senegambian Confederation opened a perfect opportunity to reduce or eliminate these ‘illegal’ transactions. For that very reason, during the subsequent negotiations, no compensation was planned for the loss of revenue which Gambia could anticipate due to its loss of autonomy with respect to tariff and fiscal policy.26 Since ‘re-exportation’ was based on illegal cross-border trade with Senegal, the Gambian authorities were themselves in no position to raise the issue of compensation. It was at this stage that strong representations were made by the Gambian trade lobby which outlined the economic and financial costs that the customs union would carry. These appeared overwhelmingly high since Gambian resources were scarce, and substantial employment opportunities in Banjul were tied to harbour activities.
49The Gambian government, therefore, rejected the first set of trade liberalization measures in August 1989, and this led to the break-up of the confederation. By the early 1990s, 85 % of Gambia’ s imports were still ‘illegally’ re-exported.27 This experience indicates that, similar trade liberalization programmes are likely to face severe implementation problems within the larger regional IGOs.
50Gambia also illustrates how attempts to rehabilitate depleted or unviable national economies through the ‘domestication’ of trans-state flows carry debilitating boomerang effects for state policies. Throughout the 1970s, managing frontier-disparities on a rent-seeking basis was a vital component of the policy orientation of Benin, Togo, Gambia, Niger and, to a lesser extent, Chad. State revenues, as well as the prosperity of the population, came to depend on the states’ capacity to derive resources from the articulation between formal import trade and ‘illicit’ re-exportation. For the Beninois national administration, boosting trans-state trade was considered as a development strategy. The country’s customs and fiscal legislation, as well as infrastructure developments, were conceived so as to maximize the development of trans-state import and transit activities. Trans-state regionalization, far from being seen as antagonistic to state interests, was treated as an external shock-absorber and an agent of social regulation.
51Attempts by Benin, Togo or Niger to graft their economies onto that of Nigeria, through trans-state flows, have had their own limitations. From 1982 onwards, the benefits drawn from trans-state trade patterns were increasingly eroded by a decline in Nigeria’s oil revenues, and after 1986, the implementation of the structural adjustment policy further eroded the purchasing power of the average Nigerian. Nigerian initiatives towards a reduction country’s customs and fiscal legislation, as well as infrastructure developments, were conceived so as to maximize the development of trans-state import and transit activities. Trans-state regionalization, far from being seen as antagonistic to state interests, was treated as an external shock-absorber and an agent of social regulation.
52Attempts by Benin, Togo or Niger to graft their economies onto that of Nigeria, through trans-state flows, have had their own limitations. From 1982 onwards, the benefits drawn from trans-state trade patterns were increasingly eroded by a decline in Nigeria’s oil revenues, and after 1986, the implementation of the structural adjustment policy further eroded the purchasing power of the average Nigerian. Nigerian initiatives towards a reduction of macroeconomic imbalances induced a steady reduction of the scope for manoeuvre by the Beninois administration. For the state, the loss of fiscal and tariff resources generated by the decline of ‘legal’ (re-export) trade towards Nigeria went along with the unwanted growth of ‘illegal’ (e.g., disruptive) imports of manufactured goods, petroleum products and staple food from Nigeria. Benin’s years of prosperity, as Igué & Soulé reflected afterwards, neither favoured :
... the consolidation of public institutions [nor enabled it] to set lasting economic bases. On the contrary, the 17 years concerned witnessed the establishment of mechanisms of economic and societal destruction.28
53In the early 1990s, the attitude of Be3ninois officials towards trans-state regionalization had clearly become ambivalent due to its deleterious impact on the country’s overall economic situation. Yet, in Benin as elsewhere, the state remained and still remains largely powerless to implement any policy of borderland control due to the powerful impact of cross-border trade flows on interest groups and state revenues.
54The rapid growth of trans-state regionalization may be considered as a by-product of the decline of the post-colonial states’ financial capacities and territorial control. The prosperity of trans-state networks also depends on their capacity to evade state control or negotiate support from its functionaries. For this very reason, trans-state regionalization accentuates the deinstitutionalization (désinstitutionalisation) and the (formal and informal) privatization of state agencies.29
55Trans-state regionalization has expanded far beyond the original borderland areas to cover entire regions. Since the mid- 1980s, it has adapted to the spread of structural adjustment programmes, which have tended to reduce the fiscal, excise and monetary disparities among African states. The re-exportation of consumer goods is supplemented by transactions on gold, diamonds, ivory, arms and narcotics.30 These transactions provide a highly lucrative access to the world market. They also reflect a new and important reality : trans-state regionalization no longer thrives exclusively from the exploitation of intra-continent frontier disparities ; strategies also, and perhaps increasingly, relate to opportunities offered by internationalized circuits geared towards economically more prosperous European, Asian and American economies. The reduction of opportunities associated with the exploitation of intra-African border resources is being increasingly compensated by the internationalization, and at times criminalization of the transactions.31
56In several regions of the world, regionalization goes hand in hand with institutional strategies that constitute a political response of the member states to the globalization of economies.32 In sub-Saharan Africa, regionalization proceeds from interactions initiated by non-state actors and inter-personal networks, faced with decaying states, unable or unwilling to assert their sovereignty. The continentalization of trade and financial flows is occurring, but paradoxically, as the outcome of the preservation of market segmentation and inter-state disparities. Trans-state integration is stimulated by market distortions, not trade liberalization ; a situation which accounts for the overall failure of the IGO programmes towards market integration. Globalization is seen as providing renewed opportunities for inter-personal networks which contribute to the deconstruction of state affiliations without seeking to promote the emergence of alternative territorial arrangements.
Conclusion : A dual mandate for regional institutions
57The contrast between the accelerated globalization of markets and the resurgence of ethnic, cultural or religious particularisms are not specific to sub-Saharan Africa. Neither is the pervasive development of trans-state regional flows at the expense of official circuits. Sub-Saharan Africa owes its specificity to the widespread and highly destructive effects of such antagonistic trends.
58Despite two decades of outward-oriented structural adjustment policies, African states find it increasingly difficult :
... to face international competition and implement ‘erga omnes’ liberalization programmes without threatening to destroy their production capabilities.33
59As suggested by the same author,
The constitution of sub-regional spaces could be conceived as an internationalization phase ; regional integration would be a transitionary process hopefully leading to broader international openness.
60Such a perspective would also satisfy a dual mandate : it would accommodate demands for autonomy from various geo-ethnic groups. It would also aggregate some of the smaller unviable African states into larger and more viable economic and political entities.
61Side-tracking the destabilizing potentials of trans-state regionalization requires first and foremost a sensitivity to the regulatory functions that such flows perform. To this effect, the coordination of macro-economic policies on a regional basis should be targeted as an intermediate objective on the road towards improved global integration. The establishment, consolidation and geographical extension of areas of monetary stability should be treated as a strategic imperative in this context. The advantages such sectoral integration would provide include : (i) the reduction of incentives to develop trans-state flows between member states, as illustrated by the case of the Franc Zone ; (ii) a more systematic appraisal of the regional impact of national macro-economic policies ; (iii) the creation of an enabling environment for the coordination of structural adjustment programmes on a regional basis ; (iv) the coordination of donor support on a sub-regional basis, in liaison with a broad range of actors.
62Establishing stable sub-regional currency areas will not succeed in quelling the deleterious effects of illegal trans-state regional flows unless it takes into consideration the outward-oriented adjustment process. As witnessed in the case of the Franc Zone, due to the lack of any coordination between its Structural Adjustment Programme and those of the neighbouring states, the trans-state flows were induced to redeploy along the external frontiers of the newly formed monetary groupings.
63Monetary integration can also provide the basis for more efficient coordination and monitoring of the social and regional impact of structural adjustment policies. Operating on a national basis reduces the capacity of governments to assess social responses to adjustment policies, a situation which favours the reproduction of trans-state networks on an ever-broadening basis. Monitoring the regional impact of adjustment programmes as a first step, coordinating their implementation on a regional basis at a later stage, will improve the capacity to correct their social and economic impact. It will also highlight the plunder-thy-neighbours strategies which currently feed the development of trans-state regionalization.
64Improved regional coordination and commitment of donors to such policies are equally decisive for the success of the creation of stable monetary areas. Such areas would be justified on two grounds. First, they would alleviate the social cost of adjustment policies and facilitate the reconversion of trans-state networks into non-criminalized linkages based on real comparative advantages. Second, monetary integration would create an enabling environment to overcome the current political crisis in the continent, especially with respect to the integration of ‘unviable’ states within broader communities.
65Current macroeconomic policies towards a rehabilitation of African economies carry the implicit assumption that the small fragmented economies of African states can improve their integration into the world economy on an individual basis. An additional effect of the coordination of structural adjustment policies on a regional basis would be the formation of an enabling environment for the peaceful redefinition of existing political boundaries. The experience of the South East Asian NICs is a useful reminder that comparative advantages and competitiveness, far from being defined in static terms, can deteriorate or dramatically improve through adequately defined policy orientations.34 Such achievements should not be used to condemn the several African states that owe their survival to international aid.
66Regional integration schemes should promote a peaceful response to the domestic challenges of existing states by enabling their incorporation into broader entities. Convinced Pan-Africanists have unsuccessfully argued for a long time that :
... our leaders, governments and people should have undertaken a fundamental restructuring of the postcolonial states. We would then have today, instead of 51 states with varying degrees of internal strife, border disputes, unviable economies and political independence, some one or two dozen capable of standing up and being counted economically and politically.35
67The experience of Belgium may be considered in this respect. The country’s so-called dissociative federalism involves a growing regional autonomy granted to the Flemish and Walloon communities. This process is taking place peacefully and does not involve any disruption of the country’s integration into the global economy. Indeed, it goes along with an outward-looking approach, which ensures the preservation of state-related fonctions and expectations : areas of traditional state intervention are being transferred to the European union as part of a communautarisation process which is endorsed by the 14 other European states. During the debate over the ratification of the Maastricht treaty in the early 1990s, it was estimated that EU legislation accounted for as much as 80 per cent of the rules which applied in France. European integration provides its member states with a capacity to accommodate domestic pressure for regional autonomy while responding to the global economic imperative of incorporation into larger supranational entities. This makes a crucial difference in such a situation as that created by the dissolution of the former Czechoslovakian Federation which merely led to the formation of two smaller states.
68In Africa too, a concomitant regionalization and transfer of state fonctions to supranational regional institutions should be envisaged. This dual-track approach to sub-regional integration would reconcile domestic demands for autonomy with the need to promote the emergence of middle levels of governance, so as to resist and adjust to the pressure of globalization.
Bibliography
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Footnotes
1 M. Foucher, Fronts et frontières. Un tour du monde géopolitique, Fayard, Paris, 1988.
2 R. Jackson and C. Rosberg, Sovereignty and underdevelopment : Juridical statehood in the African crisis, Journal of Modem African Studies 24 (1, 1986) : W. Zartman. ed., Collapsed States : The disintegration and restoration of legitimate authority, Lynn Reinner, Boulder & London, 1995 ; B. Badie, L’Etat importé, l’occidentalisation et l’ordre politique, Fayard, Paris, 1992 ; E. Leroy, dir.. Besoin d’état. Politique africaine 61 (1996).
3 E. Kodjo, Et demain l’Afrique, 1986, p. 268.
4 J. Herbst. The potential for conflict in Africa, Africa Insight 22 (2. 1992) : 107 ; S. Wright, Africa in the post-Cold War world, Trans Africa Forum 9 (2, 1992) : 26-27.
5 S. Samatar, The Somali dilemma : Nation in search of a state. In : Partitioned Africain : Ethnic relations across Africa ‘s international boundaries, A. Asiwaju. ed.. 1985. p. 187.
6 D. Bach, Federalism, indigeneity and ethnicity in Nigeria. In : Democratic Transition in Nigeria : Politics, governance and civil society, 1986-92, Lynne Reinner, 1997a.
7 J. MacGaffey et al., The Real Economy of Zaïre, James Currey, London and University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1991, p. 158.
8 R. Pourtier, Zaïre : l’unité compromise d’un ‘sous-continent’ à la dérive, Hérodote 65-66 (July-September, 1992).
9 I.M. Lewis, The Ogaden and the fragility of Somali segmentary nationalism, African Affairs 88 (353, 1989) : 573-579.
10 C. Oman, Les défis politiques de la globalisation et de la régionalisation, Centre de développement de l’OCDE, Paris, 1996.
11 The French West African Federation was dissolved in 1959. Their concern about Nigeria’s growing influence in the sub-region gave impetus to the reconciliation and establishment of the francophone Economic Community of West Africa.
12 R. Medhora, Lessons from the UMOA. In : Regional Integration and Cooperation in West Africa, IDRC, Ottawa and Africa World Press, Trenton1997.
13 J. Coussy, The franc zone. In : State and society in Francophone Africa since Independence, Macmillan, London and St Martin Press, New York, 1993.
14 M. Lelart, Un exemple d’intégration institutionnelle : le cas de la Zone Franc, Revue Tiers Monde 38 (152, 1997).
15 E. Leistner, Regional cooperation in sub-Saharan Africa, Africa Insight 27 (2, 1997) : 118.
16 ECA, Progress Report on the Strengthening of Sub-regional Economic Integration Process and Establishment of the African Economic Community, ECA/ECO/90/2/4.3 (i), ECA. Addis Ababa, 1990, p. 6.
17 P. Nugent and A.I. Asiwaju, The paradox of African boundaries. In : African Boundaries : Barriers, conduits and opportunities, Frances Pinter, London, 1996.
18 E. Grégoire and P. Labazée, eds, Grands commerçants d’Afrique de l’Ouest. Logiques et pratiques d’un groupe d’hommes d’affaires contemporains, Karthala-Orstom, Paris, 1993.
19 A. Southall, Partitioned Alur. In : Partitioned Africans : Ethnic relations across Africa’s international boundaries, A.I. Asiwaju, ed. C. Hurst, London & University of Lagos Press, Lagos, 1985, p. 99.
20 A.I. Asiwaju, Western Yorubaland under European Rule, 1889-1945, Longman, London, 1976, p. 199.
21 F.A. Renner, Partition and political integration in Senegambia. In : Partitioned Africans. A.I. Asiwaju, ed., C. Hurst, London and University of Lagos Press, Lagos, 1985, 79-80.
22 A. Mondjannagni, Quelques aspects économiques, politiques, sociaux de la frontière Dahomey-Nigeria. Etudes dahoméennes I (troisième trimestre) 1963.
23 J. MacGaffey et al., The Real Economy of Zaïre, p. 31.
24 K. Meagher, Informal integration or economic subvention : The development and organisation of parallel trade in sub-Saharan Africa. In : Regional Integration and Cooperation in West Africa. Real Lavergne, ed., 1997, 168ff.
25 J. MacGaffey et al., The Real Economy of Zaïre, p. 154.
26 E. Sall, Sénégambie : territoires, frontières, espaces et réseaux sociaux. Travaux et documents n° 36, CEAN, 1992.
27 E. Sall and H. Sallah, Senegal and Gambia : The politics of integration. In : Le Sénégal et ses voisins. Sociétés-Espaces-Temps, 1994, 117-141.
28 J. Igué and B. Soulé, L’Etat-entrepôt au Benin. Commerce informel ou solution à la crise ? Karthala, Paris, 1992, p. 44.
29 J. Médard, ed., Etats d’Afrique noire. Formations, mécanismes et crises, Karthala, Paris, 1992, p. 355-366.
30 See : Bazenguissa, Labrousse, MacGaffey and Stary in D. Bach, Regionalism in Africa : Integration and disintegration, J. Currey, London, 1999.
31 J. Bayart, S. Ellis and B. Hibou, The Criminalisation of the State in Africa, J. Currey, 1997.
32 M. Boas and H. Hveem, Regionalism Compared : The African and the Southeast Asian experience, Oslo, mimeo, 1997.
33 Hugon, 1991, 10.
34 J-R Chaponnière and P. Judet. Succès asiatiques et nouvelles approches pour le développement de l’Afrique. In : La France et l’Afrique : Vadecum pour un nouveau voyage. Karthala, Paris, 1993, p. 163.
35 Adedeji, The case for remaking Africa. In : Action in Africa, Douglas Rimmer, ed., J. Currey, 1993 : p. 55.
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