Cross-regional integration and the AfCFTA

ongoing

Africa has to be equipped to respond to the impacts of climate change, inclusive of the implications of emerging global imperatives on its development.  The launch of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in January 2021 presents an opportunity for African countries to boost regional trade and also fast-track the continent’s transformative industrialisation imperative.  The AfCFTA affords an opportunity to forge a development-based integration approach that pays attention to building productive capacity through the promotion of economic diversification, structural transformation and technological development. This process can contribute immensely to building resilience of democratic institutions and silencing the guns in Africa as provided for in the vision set out in the African Union’s Agenda 2063. The integration experiences of the European Union and the ASEAN region will yield comparative insights that can inform how Africa implements the AfCFTA and, also contribute to current debates related to integration challenges. The Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance seeks to establish a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on Cross-Regional integration that bridges the gap between academic research and policy. This project sets the following objectives: (a) becoming a hub where research is co-created with policy practitioners and scholars from Africa, Europe and South-East Asian countries; (b) developing collaborative research publications to inform policy debates relevant to regional integration efforts in Africa, Europe and South-East Asia; (c) crafting learning opportunities for policy practitioners and scholars in the form of dialogues and executive education courses to foster engagement with the cross-regional case study experiences. Collaboration with leading European Institutions, specifically the Democracy Institute at CEU; and Institutions in South-East Asia such as the National University of Singapore are essential to the success of this project.