NEPAD, Regional Integration and Trade

The community of practice under this thematic area will reflect the consistently stated desire of African countries for greater integration of the continent and within the global economy. ECA has been supporting the process of regional integration as part of Africa’s strategy for economic transformation and for integration into the global economy. In this critical area, ECA will monitor progress in integration-building capacities for implementing the Abuja Treaty for establishing the African Economic Community, promoting NEPAD initiatives particularly in infrastructure development, sectoral issues, and peer learning. ECA’s commitment to the strengthening of infrastructure on the continent lies in its strong belief that sound interregional and overseas transport and communications contribute to the facilitation, promotion and expansion of international and intra-regional trade.

NEPAD - New Partnership For Africa's Development and the United Nations

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is a pledge by African leaders, based on a common vision and a firm and shared conviction, that they have a pressing duty to eradicate poverty and to place their countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development, and at the same time to participate actively in the world economy and body politic. NEPAD is anchored on the determination of Africans to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and exclusion in a globalising world.

Click here to access the network which showcases UN Support to the AU and NEPAD through the Regional Consultative Mechanism.

Regional Integration

An Observatory on Regional Integration within Africa aims at analysing the pillars of Regional Integration within Regional Economic Community (REC) and related Institutional/Organisational profile workspaces, whereby background information, management structure, major achievements, short and long-term goals as well as average growth of Integration Indices, can be articulated in respective workspaces with focal points having administrative rights and privileges.

Click here to continue to the Observatory on Regional Integration

Trade

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has very strong capacities on trade issues including international negotiations, mainstreaming development in trade and vice-versa as well as identifying policies that could help African countries deepen their export capacities among others. These capacities have enabled UNECA, through the African Trade Policy Centre (ATPC) to provide technical support to the African countries in multilateral (World Trade Organisation) and bilateral (European Partnership Agreement) negotiations. UNECA also has extensive experience in providing technical support on trade to African countries. The technical support is underpinned by a strong desire to help African countries identify policies to build export capacities to exploit the market access likely to result from the negotiations. To ensure the attainment of desired outcomes, UNECA complements the technical work and support to African countries with strong advocacy. The advocacy element has been assured through the building of very strong collaborations with regional and international organizations.

Trade and Regional Market Integration In Africa

Infrastructure and Natural Resources Management

Infrastructure and Natural Resources development/management are intrinsically linked when it comes to focussing on Regional Integration issues. Africa's possession of diverse and abundant natural resources, unconfined to national boundaries - can be seen to justify the need to substantially invest in trans-national resource utilisation, both financially and in human resources so as to facilitate Development Corridor infrastructure. ECA acknowledges the existence of efforts made towards this utilisation as in the case of the NEPAD Spatial Development Initiative. Highlights include co-operation between governments within trans-national Development Corridors, the re-visiting and harmonisation of national policies in natural resources' exploitation and the co-operation between all tiers of governments, their agencies as well as development partners in the context of infrastructure and natural resources management.

The International Study Group To Review Africa's Mining Regimes is an example of the renewed paradigm in non-renewable resource management.

Harmonisation of Sectoral Policies within Infrastructure and Natural Resources Management is one of the visible tenets of Regional Integration as shown within the Observatory on Regional Integration.