Traditional and Emerging Partners’ Role in African Regional Economic Integration: Issues and Recommendations

The document examines the challenges of African regional economic integration, highlighting the failure of the EU-modeled Abuja Treaty due to political tensions and infrastructure deficits. It compares the 'traditional' donor approach—focused on institutional support and soft infrastructure—with the 'emerging' partners' project-based, resource-driven approach. The author argues that while emerging partners fill critical hard infrastructure gaps, their tied-aid models can limit local skill transfer. The paper concludes that Africa must define its own strategic development agenda to effectively leverage competition between these partners and avoid 'incentive wars'.

• African regional economic integration, guided by the 1991 Abuja Treaty, has progressed slowly because the European model is ill-suited to Africa's political and economic context, where political and security agendas often dominate economic ones.
• Severe infrastructure deficits significantly hinder intra-regional trade, with transport and logistics costs in Africa estimated at 2.5 times the global average.
• Traditional donors, led by the EU and US, have historically focused on institutional development, governance, and 'soft' infrastructure, though they have recently returned to funding hard infrastructure projects.
• The EU's use of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) has complicated African integration by creating fragmented trading relations and additional layers of complexity, often not aligning with existing regional economic communities.
• Emerging partners, particularly China, India, and Brazil, employ a 'package' approach where aid, investment, and loans are bundled with trade, often focusing on resource-rich countries and hard infrastructure.
• China utilizes the 'Angola model' (resources for infrastructure), providing large concessional loans for infrastructure projects secured by the sale of natural resources to Chinese state-owned enterprises.
• India's engagement is characterized by the 'Focus Africa' programme and the ITEC programme, targeting resource-rich countries and those with significant Indian communities through tied development assistance.
• Brazil's involvement focuses on commercial aspirations and South-South technical cooperation, particularly in agriculture and biofuels, and is often driven by private enterprise rather than government backing.
• The EU's proposal for 'triangular co-operation' with China and Africa has been poorly received by both, as China views it as an attempt to impose Western aid standards and Africa sees it as an effort by Europe to reassert dominance.
• Chinese Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in Africa have largely failed due to poor infrastructure, planning shortfalls, and a lack of political support, with only the zone in Egypt being fully operational.

APA

Dube, M. (2013). Traditional and Emerging Partners’ Role in African Regional Economic Integration: Issues and Recommendations. South African Institute of International Affairs. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Occasional-Paper-158.pdf

Chicago

Dube, Memory. Traditional and Emerging Partners’ Role in African Regional Economic Integration: Issues and Recommendations. South African Institute of International Affairs, 2013. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Occasional-Paper-158.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Dube |first1=Memory |title=Traditional and Emerging Partners’ Role in African Regional Economic Integration: Issues and Recommendations |publisher=South African Institute of International Affairs |date=October 2013 |url=https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Occasional-Paper-158.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{dube2013traditional, author = {Dube, Memory}, title = {{Traditional and Emerging Partners’ Role in African Regional Economic Integration: Issues and Recommendations}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, year = {2013}, month = oct, url = {https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Occasional-Paper-158.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }