Regional Economic Communities - Challenges Facing The RECs

Challenges Facing The RECs

Several of the RECs overlap in membership: for example, in East Africa, Kenya and Uganda are members of both the EAC and COMESA, whereas Tanzania, also a member of the EAC, left COMESA and joined SADC in 2001. This multiple and confusing membership creates duplication and sometimes competition in activities, while placing additional burdens on already over-stretched foreign affairs staff to attend all the various summits and other meetings.

Moreover, there are additional regional economic cooperation bodies not officially recognised by the African Union as RECs, including:

• Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC)
• West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA/WAEMU)
• Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (CEPGL)
• Indian Ocean Commission (IOC)
• Mano River Union (MRU)
• Southern African Customs Union (SACU)

Other regional cooperation structures not necessarily focused on economic integration also have some overlapping authority, including:

• peace and security agreements, such as the International Conference for the Great Lakes Region (CIRGL/ICGLR); and
• river basin management agreements, such as the Senegal River Basin Development Authority (OMVS).

The internal capability of the RECs varies considerably, with ECOWAS, SADC and EAC the most developed. Moreover, though the RECs are envisaged as the building blocks of the African Union, there is no clear evidence that all existing RECs have the aim of long-term continental integration in view, nor that there is the political will within all the RECs to submit regional concerns to the overriding imperatives of the Union.