Abstract
This chapter focuses on the convergence of two of Africa’s regional economic communities (RECs), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).1 Various divergence and convergence models demonstrate how regional groups and countries could achieve economic growth through eliminating discriminatory policies that purport to favor endogenous growth factors such as industrialization, technology, and knowledge-driven production. Considering these growth models, the literature also highlights that convergence can be achieved by poorer countries’ economies becoming on par with those of rich countries over a long-run convergence period. Poorer countries in a regional scheme with a stronger partner that conducts North-South trade can also benefit from technology and knowledge spillover.2 Two main questions are posed here: What have COMESA and SADC managed to achieve with regard to the agreements and protocols outlined in the 2008 Tripartite roadmap for the period 2008–15? And how are COMESA and SADC (as both institutions and member states) managing the issue of multiple memberships?
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Notes
See, for example, Oded Galor, “Convergence? Inferences from Theoretical Models,” Economic Journal 106, no. 437 (1996), 1057;
Paul M. Romer, “Increasing Returns and Long-Run Growth,” Journal of Political Economy 94, no. 5 (1986), 1002–37;
Robert J. Barro, “Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 106, no. 2 (1991), 407–501;
N. Gregory Mankiw, David Romer, and David N. Weil, “A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 107, no. 2 (1992), 407–37;
Robert J. Barro and Xavier Sala-i-Martin, Economic Growth, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2004);
Steven N. Durlauf and Paul A. Johnson, “Multiple Regimes and Cross-Country Growth Behaviour,” Journal of Applied Econometrics 10, no. 4 (1995), 365–84.
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), African Union (AU), and African Development Bank (AfDB), Assessing Regional Integration in Africa V: Towards an African Continental Free Trade Area, 2012, http://www.uneca.org/sites/default/files/publications/aria5_print_uneca_fin_20_july_1.pdf (accessed April 27, 2015), pp. 13–16.
Ibid., p. 39. See also Simon Kuznets, “Modern Economic Growth and the Less Developed Countries,” in Simon Kuznets, Economic Development, the Family, and Income Distribution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 68–77.
Barro and Sala-i-Martin, Economic Growth, p. 31. See also Simon Kuznets, “Economic Growth and Income Inequality,” American Economic Review 45, no. 1 (1955), 1–28.
COMESA, EAC, and SADC, Final Communiqué of the Tripartite Summit of Heads of State and Government: Vision—Towards a Single Market; Theme— Deepening COMESA-EAC-SADC Integration, October 22, 2008.
AU Commission, Status of Integration in Africa (SIA IV), 2013, http://ea.au.int/en/sites/default/files/SIA%202013%28latest%29_En.pdf (accessed June 9, 2015), p. 24.
Pravin Gordhan, “2013 Budget Speech,” South African National Treasury, February 27, 2013, http://www.treasury.gov.za/documents/national%20bud-get/2013/speech/speech.pdf (accessed June 8, 2015).
COMESA, EAC, and SADC, Communiqué of the Second COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Summit, June 12, 2011.
Carlos Lopes, “Mega Trade Agreement a Step Forward for the Continent,” UNECA, June 12, 2015, http://www.uneca.org/stories/mega-trade-agreementstep-forward-continent-%E2%80%93-carlos-lopes (accessed June 30, 2015).
COMESA, EAC, and SADC, “Tripartite Update: Trade and Customs Committee Ministers’ Meeting,” unpublished official document, February 9, 2015.
SADC, “Tripartite Summit Kicks Off in Sharm El Sheik,” June 9, 2015, h t t p : / / www.sadc.int/news-events/news/tripartite-summit-kicks-sharm-el-sheik/ (accessed July 2, 2015).
Raimo Väyrynen, “Regionalism: Old and New,” International Studies Review 5, no. 1 (2003), 25–51.
James T. Gathii, “African Regional Trade Agreements as Flexible Legal Regimes,” North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation 35, no. 3 (2010), 653.
Brendan Vickers, “South Africa’s Economic Diplomacy in a Changing Global Order,” in Chris Landsberg and Jo-Ansie van Wyk (eds.), South African Foreign Policy Review, vol. 1 (Johannesburg: Africa Institute of South Africa and Institute for Global Dialogue, 2012), pp. 112–38.
Ibid., pp. 129–30. See also Richard Gibb, “Southern Africa in Transition: Prospects and Problems Facing Regional Integration,” Journal of Modern African Studies 36, no. 2 (1998), 287–306.
Anthony J. Venables, “Regional Integration Agreements: A Force for Convergence or Divergence?,” Policy Research Working Paper no. 2260, World Bank, December 1999, http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/abs/10.1596/1813–9450-2260 (accessed February 20, 2015).
Walter Mattli, The Logic of Regional Integration: Europe and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 41.
Jorge Iván Canales-Kriljenko, Farayi Gwenhamo, and Saji Thomas, “Inward and Outward Spillovers in the SACU Area,” International Monetary Fund (IMF) Working Paper no. WP/13/31, January 2013, https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2013/wp1331.pdf (accessed April 27, 2015). Data available from the South Africa Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) trade database at http://tradestats.thedti.gov.za/ReportFolders/reportFolders.aspx?sCS_referer=&sCS _ChosenLang=en (accessed April 27, 2015); and World Bank, “GDP.”
Jagdish N. Bhagwati, The World Trading System at Risk (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), cited in Gathii, “African Regional Trade Agreements,” p. 657.
South African Foreign Policy Initiative (SAFPI), “Namibia Sticks to Its EPA Guns,” December 18, 2012, http://www.safpi.org/news/article/2012/namibia sticks-its-epa-guns (accessed October 12, 2013).
See also Brendan Vickers, “SADC’s International Trade Relations,” in Charles Harvey (ed.), Proceedings of the 2009 FOPRISA Annual Conference (Gaborone: Lentswe la Lesedi, 2010), pp. 129–49.
Carolyn Jenkins and Lynne Thomas, “The Macroeconomic Policy Framework,” in Carolyn Jenkins, Jonathan Leape, and Lynne Thomas (eds.), Gaining from Trade in Southern Africa: Complementary Policies to Underpin the SADC Free Trade Area (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), pp. 24–57;
Margaret Lee, The Political Economy of Regionalism in Southern Africa (Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press, 2003), p. 217.
European Union (EU), “Southern African Region and the EU Complete Negotiations for an Economic Partnership Agreement,” July 22, 2014, http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1135 (accessed August 20, 2014).
Justin Malewezi, “Regional Integration: The Path to Prosperity?,” in Christopher Clapham, Greg Mills, Anna Morner, and Elizabeth Sidiropoulos (eds.), Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Comparative International Perspectives (Cape Town: South African Institute for International Affairs [SAIIA], 2001), pp. 19–26.
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© 2016 Dawn Nagar
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Nagar, D. (2016). COMESA and SADC: The Era of Convergence. In: Levine, D.H., Nagar, D. (eds) Region-Building in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137586117_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137586117_12
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