New Regionalist Impulses: Implications of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) for Regional integration in Southern Africa

By
Khabele Matlosa*

Paper Prepared for CODESRIA’s 10TH General Assembly on "Africa in the New Millennium", Kampala, Uganda, 8-12 December 2002.

 

Introduction

One of the key aspects of the social science discourses in Africa has revolved mainly around regional cooperation in the continent. At the heart of this debate that still rages today is precisely how the continent can reposition itself strategically in such a manner that regionalism becomes one of the engines of sustainable development for states concerned and how then the continent could respond effectively to globalisation through pooling sovereignty as well as driving the development agenda through supranational institutions. The debate has also witnessed various types of regionalist impulses as states in various parts of the continent attempt to steer their development agendas through regional cooperation schemes. On a continental level, the most commendable, although ultimately abortive, attempt towards a deliberate regionalism was the 1980 Lagos Plan of Action. It is instructive that the Lagos Plan essentially ‘never saw light of day’ in reality primarily due to competing development agendas of the powerful international financial institutions (IFIs), especially the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It is worth refreshing our minds that immediately after the Lagos Plan was launched in 1980, the World Bank produced a counter-development agenda in the form of the 1981 Berg Report. What then followed in this struggle over the African Development agenda or what Claude Ake terms the "Confusion of Agendas" is now history. All experts in the filed know now that the neo-liberal orthodoxy espoused by the Bank and the Fund took center stage and predomi8nated over what was an incipient African agenda of economic nationalism aimed at ensuring autonomous development and a state-centric regional cooperation process. What was the outcome; the decade 1980s-90s was widely characterized as the Lost Decade for the continent due in a large measure to Bank/Fund sponsored economic adjustment programmes that pervaded the entire continent. We seem to be moving in virtuous circles. Today, the continent is vigorously espousing a new regionalist development programme in the form of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), which by all accounts lacks either synergy or conceptual linkage with the 1980 Lagos Plan. This new regionalist impulse which surfaced in the year 2000 propelled through the African Renaissance project of the South African President, Thabo Mbeki, was adopted by the OAU in Lusaka, Zambia the following year and also by the newly established African Union in 2002 in Durban, South Africa. It unreservedly embraces wholeheartedly the neo-liberal development and cooperation agenda of market supremacy over states and as such negates the Lagos Plan. Not only that; this new regionalist impulse has also coincided with a strategy document published by the Bank entitled "Can Africa Claim the 21st Century?". Then the critical question is what are the policy and strategic implications of the NEPAD initiative for regional cooperation in Africa as a whole and Southern Africa in particular. This is the primary concern of this paper.

The paper, thus, presents challenges and opportunities that confront Southern Africa in its efforts towards regional cooperation in the era of accelerated globalisation and poses a central question whether the New Partnership for Africa (NEPAD) is likely to perpetuate the current dependent development path or ensure an autonomous development trajectory for the African continent. Depending on which path the NEPAD stimulates the development path of the continent, then the next question, of course, is what type of regional cooperation is this new regionalist impulse likely to propel: state-driven cooperation or market-driven cooperation? In order to avoid broad generalizations and sweeping observations about the entire continent, the paper focuses its spotlight particularly on Southern Africa and thus draws lessons for the continent in terms of the implications of NEPAD for regional cooperation. To achieve this task, the paper is structured as follows: the next section introduces some contextual and conceptual frameworks for our understanding of progress, problems and prospects for regional cooperation in Southern Africa. The third section interrogates the impetus towards new regionalist impulses in the SADC region since the 1990s. The fourth section is a sketchy analysis of the salient features of the political economy of Southern which are key for either success or failure of sustainable regional cooperation and deep integration. The fifth section is a brief expose of the implications of NEPAD for deep integration in Southern Africa. The conclusion section wraps up the debate and revisits the main argument and key observations.

Contextual and Conceptual Framework

Survey of the regional cooperation literature suggests that Africa in general and Southern Africa in particular have achieved modest positive results of cooperation mainly in the area of political solidarity and relative political unity through, for instance, the Organisation of African Unity/African Union and the Front Line States/Southern African Development Community, although little has been achieved in the area of economic integration in the face of globalisation (Mkandawire, 1997; Evans, Holmes and Mandaza, 1999; SAPES/UNDP, 20002; Sako and Ogiogio, 2002). Rather than ensuring an autonomous development path for the continent, the regional cooperation schemes thus far have perpetuated dependent development, although it must be accepted that they have been extremely instrumental in keeping the spirit and ideology of Pan-Africanism alive. Currently this ideology is being rekindled in the form of African Renaissance (Makgoba, 1999; Mandaza and Nabudere, 2002), which is an ideal that Africa’s awakening, emancipation, sustainable development and prosperity can be achieved only through unity of its people and nations. Prah notes that Pan-Africanism/African Renaissance is a democratic and emancipatory movement which "shares a common inspiration with the rest of humanity in its historical drive towards freedom, justice and self-determination. This ideal was never intended to be a xenophobic or inward-looking principle" (1999:57-58). At the ideological level, Pan-Africanism or its new variant – African Renaissance – ought to form a firm political foundation for sustainable regional cooperation in Africa in general and Southern Africa in particular. Hence, we want to argue strongly that for a successful regional cooperation effort in the continent as a whole and Southern Africa in particular, political integration must, of necessity precede economic integration at best or, better still, the two processes must proceed in tandem.

Whereas various regions of the African continent experimented with regional cooperation schemes since the 1970s most of which subsequently collapsed, such as the East African Community (EAC), or delivered insignificant economic results such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Southern Africa still stands out as a region with a relatively impressive record of regional cooperation. This region has the longest enduring and relatively ‘successful’ customs union scheme in the form of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), which dates as far back in history as 1910. Linked to SACU is a monetary union among South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia in the form of the Common Monetary Area (CMA), which is traceable to the mid-1970s. The region has also experimented with an economic coordination scheme in the form of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) between 1980 and 1992 with modest economic and political achievements (SAPES/UNDP/SADC, 2000). With the political liberation in both Namibia (1990) and South Africa (1994), the regional states have steered regional cooperation towards deep integration of a developmental type giving pride of place to achievement of economic community and political integration in tandem.

This new wave of regional cooperation tries to build on the limited successes of SACU/CMA and modest achievements of the SADCC experiment up to the early 1990s. In like manner, attempts at a regional political community through the SADC Organ for Politics, Defence and Security aim at building upon the foundations of the now defunct Frontline States (FLS) and strives towards collective security within the framework of the 1992 SADC Treaty. Southern African states do recognise aptly that economic integration must proceed in tandem with political integration. As Chipeta reminds us, "the case of regional cooperation and integration must thus consider both economic and political motivations" (1999:34).

It is important from the onset to define and problematise a number of intertwined, albeit distinct, concepts the will recur in this paper as we proceed namely (a) regional cooperation; (b) economic integration; (c) political integration; and (d) deep integration. Regional cooperation is a wide and open-ended concept referring to a variety of situations wherein individual states and peoples in a specific and well-defined region deliberately interact together through formal and informal schemes and networks across boundaries for mutual gain. Such interactions are theoretically driven by imperatives of economic reciprocity (mutual economic gain) among states, pooling of sovereignty by giving allegiance to and abiding by rules set out by a supranational institution (mutual political gain) and daily survival of the ordinary peoples of a region. It can also be perceived as "an attempt by nation states to control at the regional level what they have increasingly failed to manage at the national and multilateral levels….[It]… is a … form of international regulation designed to accommodate the contradictory requirements of flexibility; that is to preserve and in some cases intensify the mobility of factors of production whilst at the same time limiting the threat of foreign competition" (Gibb, 1997:71). At the state level, regional cooperation includes situations in which countries share or make available to each other resources, technology and expertise, collaborate in joint projects or act together in external economic and other relations (Davies, 1994:12). At the non-state level, two major forms of regional cooperation are informal cross-border trade and migration (Matlosa, 2001).

In a plethora of literature on regional cooperation, two important anomalies are noticeable: (a) conventionally regional cooperation is linked merely to state-to-state interactions and (b) regional cooperation is taken to be synonymous with economic integration. The first misconception suggests that much of the literature on regional cooperation is state-centric and disregards informal cross-border socio-economic interactions among ordinary peoples as they struggle for daily survival irrespective of colonial boundaries, which define state sovereignty. These informal interactions, which could also be seen as regional cooperation from below that clearly expresses popular sovereignty, challenge the legacy of settler colonialism and indiscriminate colonial boundaries. It is thus crucial that state-driven regional cooperation and people-driven regional cooperation are sufficiently harmonised. Recently Mandaza, Tostensen and Maphanyane noted correctly that regional cooperation and integration must have a popular region-wide constituency and this suggests, in and of itself, the need for democratisation of regionalism with a view to broaden participation of popular forces and address immediate and long-tern interests and needs of the region’s peoples. Their conclusion is quite instructive "after all it is the people not the governments, who will integrate the economies and societies of Southern Africa. The challenge, therefore, is to release the inner dynamic of integration, to let the people i.e. the business communities, the artists, the sports people, the professionals and civil society as a whole to be the motor of the process" (1999:102). The second misconception portrays regional cooperation as purely an economic process and specifically links cooperation primarily to inter-state trade. In this wise, much of debate on regional cooperation inevitably will revolve around issues of trade creation and trade diversion, through the nexus of the Ricardian theory of comparative advantage. According to Evans, Holmes and Mandaza "trade creation is simply new trade that would not otherwise occur, while trade diversion refers to trade taking place inside the region at the expense of the rest of the world…. Trade creation occurs when reduction of trade barriers leads countries to import from their partners products which they were previously producing themselves….. Trade diversion occurs when countries buy from their regional partners, as a result of preferential agreement, goods which they previously imported from the rest of the world" (1999:5-7).

In order to highlight the stark distinction between regional cooperation and economic integration it is worthwhile to conceive of regional cooperation as a broad term encompassing within it three main forms. First, economic coordination denotes the lowest form of regional cooperation wherein policies, strategies and regulations of a specific group of states in a given region are harmonised to bring them into line with those of other cooperating states for mutual gain (Davies, 1994:12). Economic coordination may not necessarily lead to economic integration. The Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) is a glaring example of regional economic coordination in Southern Africa, which was never meant to bring about economic integration at all. Second, regional economic integration depicts the highest form of regional cooperation wherein economies of individual states in a given region are merged either in whole or in part into a distinct entity-a single regional economy or market (Davies, 1994:12). Whereas economic coordination does not require economic integration to succeed, the latter requires the former as its pre-requisite to deepen and sustain regional cooperation. According to the above sketchy expose, therefore, economic integration is an adjunct or sub-set of regional cooperation, not its synonym. Economic integration itself has five basic forms namely:

Thirdly, a regional political community refers to another form of regional cooperation wherein states located in a specific region perceiving a common external threat join hands in a limited membership supranational organisation to address their political, military and diplomatic interests with a view to strive towards a collective/common security (Plano and Olton, 1988). Southern Africa’s experience with regional political community has been in the form of the Front Line States between the mid-1970s and the early 1990s and the current SADC Organ for Politics, Defence and Security. It is abundantly evident, therefore, that all the three main forms of regional cooperation have their mark on the political economy of Southern Africa. Proponents of regional cooperation and integration in Southern Africa have identified legion potential benefits accruing to the region. Robert Davies identifies seven as follows:

The concept of deep integration is employed in this paper to denote the simultaneous strive by SADC states for far-reaching economic integration and political integration at the same time or better still prioritizing the latter over the former. In terms of economic integration, this approach entails "the removal of external barriers, like tariffs, as well as internal barriers, such as monopolies and cartels, investment licensing and regulations. In contrast, shallow integration is concerned with removing only the external barriers" (SAPES/UNDP/SADC, 2000:18). In terms of political integration, this approach denotes harmonization of political systems, institutions and structures among member states in order to deepen political solidarity and unity with a view not only to consolidate and nurture democracy but also to ensure constructive management of costly violent conflicts of intra-state and inter-state varieties. This in part also presupposes ceding or, better stated pooling, of sovereignty through a supranational institution such as the SADC.

It is widely accepted that countries of the world are fast embracing regional cooperation as an important development strategy particularly today under conditions of globalisation. Generally, it is assumed that regional cooperation is a prudent development policy path particularly for developing countries for the following interconnected reasons:

It is behind this backdrop that the new regionalist impulses in Africa as a whole and Southern Africa in particular can be fathomed and be better explained. It is to these new impulses that the next section turns.

New Regionalist Impulses since the 1990s

In spite of modest gains and a number of disappointments with regional cooperation schemes in the past, there exists a new positive mood in Africa towards regional cooperation given the above advantages since the early 1990s. Past positive and negative lessons that Africa has learnt from experience has convinced leaders and other stakeholders of the utility of regional integration as a development tool thus shifting mindset away from Afro-pessimism to Afro-optimism (see Bourenane, 1992; SAPES/UNDP/SADC, 2000). Although Afro-pessimism is strong and alive in much of the social science discourses emanating mainly from the Western world, most progressive African social scientists have confronted this negative perspective and projected a positive future for the continent even against the daunting socio-economic challenges. As Lumummbe-Kasongo recently observed "…the perception of Africa only in terms of negativity and failure or conflicts and crises, as has become part of the dominant scholarship in the west and its African Studies programmes, contributes enormously to weakening the foundations of a critical theory about Africa that is emerging in and about Africa. A methodology to study Africa comprehensively, and also to elevate its achievements, can create the balanced way of thinking needed to objectively redefine the African reality"(2002:86). As a devout Afro-optimist myself, I fully concur with Lumumba-Kasongo and indeed it is the task of the African intellegentsia to portray their continent in a positive light, albeit not uncritically. This optimism drove the revamping of the African Economic Community in 1991 and the ratification of the Abuja Treaty in 1994 (Rwegasira, 1998). Two years earlier, a major transformation happened in Southern Africa when the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) evolved from a mere economic coordination and harmonisation into the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to strive towards economic community and a common market through deliberate efforts to merge and unify systems, policies and development strategies of member states. The Treaty establishing ECOWAS was revised in 1993 to "define, among others, the stages which the existing community would have to go through, ranging from harmonisation and coordination to a common market and to a fully fledged economic community" (Rwegasira, 1998:2). A year later, the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) "was elevated to a common market – the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), with the objective, among others, of promoting joint development in all fields of economic activity and joint adoption of macroeconomic policies and programmes" (Rwegasira, 1998:2).

These new regionalist impulses are not hard to understand. Obviously the imperatives for regional cooperation are stronger now than ever before given the multiple socio-economic and political impacts of globalisation on the African continent at large and Southern Africa in particular. According to Koman, globalisation has resulted in "fiercely competitive international environment, in which survival entails maximum efficiency. Efficiency in management of resources and economies of scale has been encouraged through the creation of extensive regional markets and giant enterprises" (1999:39). Whereas globalisation marks the integration of the world economy, regionalisation is the local expression of the globalising trends in economic development at the regional level. It is worth noting, though, that globalisation (i.e. entrenchment of monopoly capital on a global scale) is not new in mankind’s history. What is new, however, is its current unprecendended pace and intensity in a new unipolar world economy.

In a paradoxical fashion the new regionalist impulses outlined above amount to an attempt by states in specific regions of the world to both promote and contain globalisation. Put differently, regional cooperation strives to maximise the positive effects of globalisation and minimise its negative impacts. Developing states are perfectly alert to the stark reality that globalisation has more negative effects for their survival than positive impacts (see UNDP, 1999; Mengisteab, 1999; Tandon, 1999). On their own therefore African states in general and Southern African states in particular are unable to stand up to the wave of marginalisation and impoverishment brought by globalisation hence the political impulse towards regional cooperation. Thus Africa as a whole and the SADC region attempts to go global not as individual nation-states, but through supranational bodies that drive regional cooperation with a view to turn what is essentially a global pillage into a global village (Giddens, 1999). Mkandawire proposes that "how Africa goes global will be determined to a large extent by the degree of social cohesion African countries can individually and collectively muster. It is this that will determine whether globalisation is enriching or immiserizing" (SAPES/UNDP/SADC, 1998:36).

Linked to globalisation which pose serious threats to regional cooperation are the economic adjustment programmes that a majority of Southern African states are currently implementing under the aegis and guidance of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It should be noted that these international financial institutions are recent converts to regional integration. Conventionally, economic adjustment policies were premised "on a view that that the fundamental requirement as far as a country’s external economic relations was concerned was to undertake unilateral trade reform which would ‘open up’ the domestic economy, and integrate it more closely with the world economy at large. Regional cooperation was seen as, at best, an irrelevance and, at worst, a diversion from the fundamental goal of lowering tariffs towards the world at large" (Davies, 1994:13). For Chipeta, the threats posed by economic adjustment for regional cooperation are caused by, inter alia, "liquidation of firms, retrenchment of workers and policy-induced inflation" (1999:34). Besides, it is widely acknowledged that economic adjustment programmes have neither promoted sustainable growth and development nor regional cooperation as it were (Mkandawire and Olukoshi, 1996; Mkandawire and Soudo, 1999; Olukoshi, 2000). Mkandawire observes that thus far the African experience with economic adjustment programmes "explicitly designed to ensure that liberalisation led to greater integration and increased economic growth, have failed" (SAPES/UNDP/SADC, 1998:36). Even the World Bank itself, in its 1997 world development report, admits begrudgingly that there have been major errors in the design, implementation and expected outcomes of economic adjustment policies, particularly with regard to the role of the state in economic development process (Olukoshi, 2000:29).

The Bank and the Fund’s policy twist towards supporting the new regionalist impulses of the 1990s in Africa are not necessarily altruistic. They are partly premised upon the fact that most countries are now following economic adjustment programmes, and partly from an ideological perception that regional cooperation process of a neo-liberal type could be better than a purely state-driven regional cooperation project. They are fully supported in these efforts towards a neo-liberal and laissez faire type of regional integration by the all-powerful World Trade Organisation (WTO) also driven by neo-classical paradigm of inter-state trade relations (see Jones and Whittingham, 1998). These authors demonstrate that although WTO welcomes and encourages Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs), its article 24 "exists primarily for developed and more advanced developing countries, whilst LDCs should look to the ‘Enabling Clause’ adopted at the Tokyo Round which specifically provides for the formation of RTAs among LDCs" (Jones and Whittingham, 1998:80). Thus for the World Bank, IMF and WTO, regional cooperation in Southern Africa should essentially be driven by markets with states primarily playing a facilitative role and the process should advance, rather contain, the dominant interests of global capital within the framework of globalisation.

It is evident, therefore, that the trend towards new regionalism is wide spread and pervades all parts of the globe today, even though the form and content as well as agenda of this process still remain a contested terrain between the African states and powerful forces in the world economy. The new regionalist impulse in Southern Africa is traceable to the 1992 transformation of the Southern Africa Development Coordination Conference (SADCC)- a coordination scheme – to the Southern African Development Community – an economic integration scheme aimed at achieving a common market. The signing of the Windhoek Treaty in 1992 in Namibia by Southern African states marked a watershed for this transformation towards new regionalism. Through the 1992 Windhoek treaty, for the first time Southern African states have committed themselves to deep integration covering various aspects of cooperation ranging from socio-economic to political integration. The treaty enunciates various objectives of SADC of which the key ones are:

In order to achieve the above objectives, SADC has abandoned the earlier approach of country based Sectoral Coordination Units (SCUs) and adopted instead a fairly centralized system in the implementation of its mandate. This rationalization process has involved the establishment of four main Directorates based at the SADC Headquarters in Gaborone, Botswana. These new structures, which will be responsible for the realization of the above objectives, are organized as follows:

The rationalization of SADC programmes about a year ago coincided with he adoption by African states of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Although it is clear that the focus of the NEAPD programme addresses some of the key objectives of SADC and the four focal points outlined above, heated debate still surrounds the extent to which NEPAD itself can assist SADC to realize its overall vision of deep integration. Two schools of thought contest the nature of the interface between SADC and NEPAD. One is the perception held by some political elite that NEPAD, which also espouses African Renaissance, will certainly assist Africa in general and Southern Africa in particular to realize deep integration by promoting autonomous development. Hence it is that one of the explicitly stated expected outcome of NEPAD is increased African integration. To this end, the NEPAD strategy document states that African countries need to "pool their resources and enhance regional development and economic integration on the continent, in order to improve international competitiveness. The five sub-regional economic groupings of the continent must, therefore, be strengthened"(NEPAD, 2001). It should be noted that the NEPAD strategy document does not make any reference to political integration at all and this suggests part of its limitation for the achievement of deep integration.

The other school of thought is the one embraced by some non-state actors including the academic community, labour movement, the private sector and various organs of civil society. This school of thought basically argues that, if anything, the only positive element of the NEPAD initiative is its Pan-Africanist thrust, but its actual substance is heavily steeped in neo-liberal orthodoxy and this married with the illusion by state leaders that Africa’s development can be driven and propelled by lavish financial succour from the North suggest clearly that NEPAD is incapable of promoting autonomous development. Instead, the critics argue, NEPAD is bound to sustain unequal articulation and integration of the African economies into the global capitalist economy and as such perpetuates, by design or by default, dependent development. Essentially, therefore, the latter school of thought does not perceive NEPAD as an effective mechanism for SADC to achieve deep integration in Southern Africa. All said and done, prospects for deep integration in Southern Africa and a deeper understanding of the meaning of NEPAD for such a process in the SADC region requires an appreciation of the distinctiveness and specificity of the regional political economy to which we now turn the spotlight.

Salient Features of the Political Economy of Southern Africa

The story of regional cooperation in Southern Africa has to proceed from a critical inquiry into what a region is and the extent of regionness in Southern Africa. Like all other regions of the African continent, Southern Africa is not easy to define (Mandaza, Tostensen and Maphanyane, 1994). Conventionally, various definitions and/or modes of delineation of what constitute the Southern Africa region tend to use either geographic proximity of states, socio-cultural harmony, political considerations or economic interdependence as criteria of what determines the region. Given that often times these considerations are hardly ever taken together, various actors (including donors, investors, governments, and civil society organisations) in the region define Southern Africa differently. Consequently, there is yet no commonly agreed definition of the region.

For Ibbo Mandaza, Southern Africa is a geo-political construct, which is better defined by internal and external dynamics and configurations, although he further argues that the external "takes precedence in that it is first and foremost an integral part of the state and, therefore, necessarily and inevitably, influences and pervades even the dynamics of the internal. The internal is not organic, neither in its origins nor in its dynamics, at least that is inevitably so in this historical conjuncture, whether we call this neo-colonialism, the era of dominance of capital, or relentless globalisation" (SAPEM, 1999:46). These observations lead Mandaza to his unequivocal conclusion that states in Southern Africa are hostage states, weak and dependent and by the same token the Southern Africa region is a hostage sub-region, representing, as it does today, an outreach of those who govern our globe" (1999:46). Essentially, Mandaza’s conception is that the nature of integration of Southern Africa into the global economy is, in itself, inhibitive to the efforts of the regional states towards achieving regional cooperation and deep integration. For him, the three primary obstacles for deep integration in Southern Africa are:

The controversy around the definition of what constitutes Southern Africa has led Oden (1999) to identify three types of perceptions of the region, which uphold differing regionalisation agendas at various levels:

The three perspectives above should not necessarily portray a picture of a divided Southern Africa with divergent paths of regionalisation, but rather that a balanced and deep integration must, of necessity, incorporate states, markets and people. This is part of the policy challenge facing Southern Africa. In other words, who or what are the critical agents for regional cooperation; states, markets and people or a combination of all these actors playing clearly defined roles in a harmonious fashion?

It is worth noting from the above discussion, therefore, that defining a region is not a straightforward business. The intricacy of defining Southern Africa is borne by the fact that such an attempt has to take into account socio-cultural, political and historical factors, which have been shaped by both internal and external realities. From a socio-cultural stand-point, migration and cross-border social linkages are the major factors that define the Southern African region. From a political view-point, common political traditions, systems and institutions of either modern and tradition varieties help define Southern Africa’s regionness. From a historical perspective, the penetration of capitalism and subsequently colonial rule are the defining features of the Southern African region.

The fundamental structure of the Southern African regional economy is that it is externally dependent and exhibits a weak internal production base. The region’s heavy external debt and the burdensome debt servicing (see Table One) are explicable in part by its external dependence. External dependence on trade, aid and investment flows from the industrialised countries of the North has strengthened the unequal vertical integration of the individual states at the expense of collective horizontal integration among regional states themselves. Table Two depicts the burden of aid dependence among SADC member states. The bulk of trade of the regional states is with the industrialized countries of the North and as a consequence not only has intra-regional trade experienced sluggish growth, but also a majority of the states suffer severe balance of payment problems. Table Three illustrates export and import volumes and trade balances for the SADC member states. The region is marked by enclave economies, which although fairly integrated and interdependent also inhere both internal and external inequities and imbalances. Table Four highlights the trend of FDI flows in the SADC region and it is clear from this data that although FDI is generally on the decline, the level of dependence of regional states on this resource flow is still enormous.

The established hegemonic power within the regional political economy is that of South Africa over the rest of the other neighbouring states. The manner in which South Africa relates to its neighbours is thus crucial for sustainable regional cooperation and deep integration. Do other countries recognise South Africa as a regional hegemon? What responsibilities and obligations does South Africa take up for and on behalf of the region as a regional hegemon? Does South Africa pose as a benign or malign hegemon towards its neigbours as they strive for regional cooperation and deep integration? Does regional cooperation lead to the integration of South Africa into Southern Africa or Southern Africa into South Africa? All these are important questions around the balance of power in the region that could either make or break sustainable regional cooperation and deep integration (See Oden, 1998). It is the degree of interdependence among the Southern African states that must be exploited for greater regional cooperation and deep integration. The interdependent economic linkages among Southern African states include, inter alia, formal and informal cross-border human and capital movements, infrastructural networks, shared natural resources, etc (See Matlosa, 2001). It is worth noting that this interdependence does not usually lead to mutual economic gain among regional states and in some instances amounts to dependence of the relatively worse off states upon the relatively well endowed states. The disarticulated, fragmented and narrow production base exhibits the internal weakness of the regional economy. In almost all the countries that form part of the Southern Africa region, the industrial sector has experienced slow growth and the agricultural sector has either stagnated or is generally on the decline with the exception of South Africa and Zimbabwe. Most of these economies are driven mainly by the services sector that forms a major contribution to GDP (see Table Five for the economic structure of the SADC states). Further more, most of the countries are still caught in the bind of mono-cultural production concentrating production on either one single mineral or agricultural export. This again suggests that the regional economy lacks sufficient diversification for trade creation through regional cooperation and deep integration. Both the internal and external dynamics help explain the generally unimpressive performance of the regional economy in the recent past which can best be demonstrated by lack of progress in sustainable human development (SHD) as illustrated in Table Six.

Yet another important feature of the political economy of Southern Africa is the entrenched culture of human movements across boundaries. Migration is so entrenched in Southern Africa that in his seminal work that classified various regions of the Africa in 1981, Samir Amin characterised this region as Africa of the Labour Reserves. This characterisation was meant to depict the uniqueness of the capitalist penetration in this region relative to other regions. In this region settler colonialism concentrated investment, extraction and production mainly in South Africa and Zimbabwe (Sachikonye, 1998). These became the principal poles of capital accumulation within the region whereas other neighbouring states became labour reserves servicing the labour needs of white settler colonies. This pattern of migration both oscillatory and permanent, involving both skilled and semi-skilled labour, still marks the political economy of Southern Africa. Four major types of migration can be identified throughout Southern Africa namely (a) contract migration of semi-skilled labour mainly to the South African mines; (b) undocumented or irregular migration of unskilled labour that informally crosses borders and seek menial jobs, as street vendors, domestic workers or farmworkers; (c) refugees who cross boundaries either fleeing political persecution or being forcefully displaced by violent internal conflicts; and (d) brain drain which is the migration of highly skilled professional labour that amounts in most instances to resource drain on the part a supply state and resource gain on the part of a recipient state (Matlosa, 2001). To what extent do efforts towards regional cooperation and integration sufficiently tackle migration patterns in Southern Africa? Why is there such a heated controversy among SADC member-states around the draft SADC protocol on free movement of persons?

Critical Review of Implications of NEPAD for Deep Integration

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is the latest continental initiative for development and integration. This new initiative is a culmination of various efforts by the African political elite to chart a way forward for the development of the continent in the face of grave challenged posed by accelerated globalisation. It is primarily an embodiment of separate, albeit interconnected, initiatives which were initiated by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal both of which were anchored upon the ideal of African Renaissance. The South African President had developed the Millennium Recovery Partnership for Africa’s Recovery Programme whilst the Senegalese President had developed the OMEGA Plan. The discussion that ensued following these two initiatives suggests that the pioneers of the NEPAD programme are four African presidents namely Thabo Mbeki (South Africa), Abdoulaye Wade (Senegal), Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria) and Abdelaziz Bouteflika (Algeria). The initial merger of the Millennium Recovery Programme of President Mbeki and the OMEGA Plan of President Wade culminated in what was called A New African Initiative in July 2001. However, the programme was soon changed to the New Partnership for Africa’s Development three months later. What exactly accounts for the sudden change of the name still remains a moot point. Why the abrupt switch from African Initiative to Partnership? Besides the abrupt change of the name of the initiative, one unsettling aspect of the NEPAD strategy is a clear lack of interface of this programme with earlier continental initiatives that came before it from the 1908 Lagos Plan to the 2000 Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation (CSSDC). Not only that. Up to now, the institutional and programmatic synergies and relationships between NEPAD on one hand and AU and the Economic Commission for Africa still remain unclear and indeed a conflict-inducing situation among the African states. The four pioneering presidents promoted the idea of NEPAD both throughout the African continent and in the northern hemisphere as a new development vision requiring all-round support for effective implementation. Indeed, the NEPAD was adopted by the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) in its summit held in Lusaka, Zambia in October 2001 and further by the inaugural summit of the African Union (AU) held in Durban, South Africa. In its various summits, the G8 group of countries has given some ambivalent gestures of support, although in many instances this support has also tended to be linked to political conditionality of aid (Matlosa et.al, 2002; Cilliers, 2002.

In essence, while the Pan-Africanist anchor of NEPAD is a commendable political statement in the direction of nurturing and consolidating continental unity (so crucial for political integration throughout the continent and in Southern Africa) the substance of the programme does not suggest a deliberate strategic and policy stance for repositioning the continent within the world economy, and as such the programme may not assist the current efforts towards deep integration. There is no gainsaying that the priority sectors identified by NEPAD for Africa’s development are complementary to the sectoral priorities of the SADC. Priority sectors identified by for Africa’s development by NEPAD are as follows:

For Africa to promote sustainable development therefore the NEPAD initiative suggests that three main pre-conditions have to be met namely (a) peace, security, democracy and political governance; (b) economic and corporate governance with a focus on public finance management; and (c) regional cooperation and integration. From a perspective of the regional cooperation discourse, there is nothing wrong with the priority sectors and the pre-conditions outlined above for sustainable development in Africa. However, two main flaws of the NEPAD initiative in so far as deep integration in the continent as a whole and Southern Africa in particular are concerned are worth considering.

The first relates to the neo-liberal orthodoxy that NEPAD is so heavily steeped into. The NEPAD strategy document seems to embrace the old idea that states only play a facilitative and regulatory role in the development process while the markets should reign supreme in development and integration processes. The document states that one of the ways of achieving the key objectives of the new programme is through "building the capacity of the states in Africa to set and enforce the legal framework, and enforce law and order"(NEPAD, 2001). To the extent that the NEPAD embraces market fundamentalism and fails to see the state as a development agent in its own right it does not provide a firm alternative development trajectory for the continent from what the World Bank and the IMF have so far provided hence it is likely that programmes emanating from this initiative will still be a continuation of policies of these powerful financial institutions. It is also instructive that NEPAD fails to provide a systematic critique of the economic adjustment, but, instead, the political elite, in a fairly schizophrenic fashion embraces World Bank and IMF development initiatives as if these can help re-position Africa within the global economy. For instance, the strategy document states that NEPAD will support the Poverty Reduction Strategies by the World Bank/IMF, the debt relief initiative of the two financial institutions known as the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC), the 2000 Cotonou Agreement and the 2001 US Trade and Development Act (AGOA). All these controversial development initiatives are embraced uncritically suggesting acquiescence of the political elite to the dominant neo-liberal orthodoxy. Recently the World Bank set its agenda for Africa clearly in a publication rhetorically entitled "Can Africa Claim the 21st Century". No doubt that this agenda is informed by neo-liberalism and as such is an assault of economic nationalism and any efforts towards autonomous development and deep integration. The main thrust of this World Bank strategy document is that African states should focus their attention at liberalizing their economies and markets for foreign investment rather than focusing on intra-regional trade. Surely this approach will not ensure autonomous development nor will it guarantee deep integration. It is worth noting that the World Bank document came out a year before NEPAD and had actually called for a need for Africa to develop a "business plan" for putting in place a vision of "development conceived, owned and implemented by accountable governments, anchored in broad national consensus and supported by Africa’s development partners"(World Bank, 2001:xi). For the World Bank, Africa can only claim the 21st Century if, and only if, four (4) main issues are addressed namely

There is no doubt that this agenda is generally a mirror image of the NEPAD agenda. So could it then be that even the change of the name from NAI to NEPAD was influenced mainly by the World Bank emphasis on partnerships? This question still warrants further investigation.

The second relates to resource mobilization for the implementation of the NEPAD initiative. Typical of initiatives developed by weak, fragmented and externally dependent states, there is a wide-spread belief among the African political elite the NEPAD initiative will be driven by massive sums of funds from the industrialized countries of the North. The programme requires about US$64 million per annum to realize its key objectives and almost the whole amount is expected to come from the G8 countries who, not surprisingly, have exhibited a lukewarm attitude towards the programme since the programme was submitted to them for support during their summit in Genoa, Italy in 2001. The NEPAD strategy document states, "the new long-term vision will require massive, heavy investment to bridge existing gaps. The challenge ahead for Africa is to be able to raise the required funding under the best conditions possible. We therefore call upon our development partners to assist us in this endeavour….the bulk of the needed resources will have to be obtained from outside the continent"(NEPAD, 2001: 13 and 37). While the African elites are adopting an Ostrich-like posture towards development and integration challenges in the continent, they seem to want to perpetuate dependent development, either by commission or omission, through NEPAD and surely this will defeat even the noble principle of African Renaissance upon which the initiative is premised. So far, the G8 countries recently, during its summit in Kananaskis, Canada in June 2002, pledged a paltry us$6 million towards NEPAD linked to the usual political conditionality of aid. It was with a sigh of relief to the political elite that the African Development Bank pledged about US$200 million in early November 2002 during a donors roundtable in Abuja, Nigeria. Undoubtedly dependent development cannot provide a conducive ground for sustainable regional cooperation and deep integration. The only plausible and unequivocal conclusion that this discussion points to is that in its present form, NEPAD is unlikely to add value to sustainable regional cooperation and deep integration in Southern Africa. For NEPAD to add value to the regional cooperation and integration it has be re-oriented more towards a quest for autonomous development and development of an alternative development trajectory to the pervasive neo-liberal approaches of the World Bank and the IMF.

Conclusion

Sustainable regional cooperation remains a major challenge for Africa in the face of accelerated globalisation. It should, all things being equal, form the fulcrum of a strategic response of the African States in general and Southern Africa in particular to the marginalising tendency of globalisation. A more meaningful and beneficial regional cooperation strategy ought to be informed by the quest for autonomous development and economic nationalism as opposed to dependent development and neo-liberal economic orthodoxy. In the final analysis sustainable regional cooperation must aim to achieve deep integration pursuing both economic integration and political integration in tandem. The extent to which the NEPAD initiative will facilitate sustainable regional cooperation and deep integration still remain a moot point. Two major flaws of the NEPAD in this regard are mainly that the initiative espouses neo-liberal economic orthodoxy rather than economic nationalism. Furthermore the initiative seems more inclined towards perpetuating dependent development rather than steering the Southern African regional political economy towards autonomous development. Bereft of economic nationalism and autonomous development the NEPAD’s potential to add value to deep integration is undoubtedly a distant mirage. If NEPAD fails to is not driven by economic nationalism and becomes incapable of steering African economies towards autonomous development, then it is bound to be used by the powerful forces in the global political economy as basically part of the political conditionality of aid to achieve their self-serving strategic and commercial interests (Matlosa, 2002). In order to guard against this high possibility, African leaders have to make deliberate efforts to re-orient NEPAD towards a vehicle for autonomous development anchored upon the ideal of Pan-Africanism and economic nationalism.

Table One: External Debt and Debt Servicing in 2000

Country

Total External Debt (US$ million)

Debt Service as % of Exports of goods and services

Indebtedness classification

Angola

10146

15

S

Botswana

413

1.8

L

DRC

11 645

14

S

Lesotho

716

12.1

L

Malawi

2 716

11.7

S

Mauritius

2 374

20.8

M

Mozambique

7 135

11.4

M

Namibia

-

-

-

Seychelles

-

-

-

South Africa

24 861

10.0

L

Swaziland

262

2.3

L

Tanzania

7 445

16.2

S

Zambia

5 730

18.7

S

Zimbabwe

4 002

22.1

M

Source: World Development Indicators, 2002

Key: Indebtedness is measured on a three-point scale, (a) Severely indebted (S), Moderately indebted (M) and Less indebted (L) countries.

 

Table Two: Net ODA from all donors, nominal, US$ m, (current prices)

 

1990-1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

Angola

342

473

355

335

388

Botswana

116

75

122

106

61

DR Congo

377

166

157

126

132

Lesotho

130

104

92

66

31

Malawi

499

492

345

434

446

Mauritius

44

19

42

40

42

Mozambique

1163

888

947

1039

118

Namibia

155

188

165

180

178

Seychelles

21

19

17

24

13

South Africa

319

358

495

512

539

Swaziland

54

30

27

30

29

Tanzania

1064

877

944

1000

990

Zambia

1004

610

610

349

623

Zimbabwe

512

371

335

280

244

Source: African Development Indicators, 2001

 

Table Three: FDI inflows into SADC Countries, 1990-2001

(US$ m)

 

1990-1995 Annual Average

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

Angola

260

181

412

1114

2471

879

1119

Botswana

-24

70

100

96

37

57

57

DR Congo

-3

25

-44

-61

11

23

32

Lesotho

213

286

269

262

163

119

118

Malawi

15

44

22

70

60

45

58

Mauritius

21

37

55

12

49

277

12

Mozambique

28

73

64

235

382

139

255

Namibia

96

129

84

77

111

153

99

Seychelles

23

30

54

55

60

56

34

South Africa

301

818

3817

561

1502

888

6653

Swaziland

63

22

-15

152

100

-19

69

Tanzania

39

149

158

172

183

193

224

Zambia

122

117

207

198

163

122

72

Zimbabwe

34

81

135

444

59

23

5

Source: UNCTAD 2002

Table Four: SADC’s Economic Structure

Country

GDP per capita,US$millions,1999

Agric value added as % of GDP,1999

Industry value added as a % of GDP,1999

Manufacturing value added as a % of GDP,1999

Services value added as a % of GDP,1999
           

Angola

8545

7

77

4

16

Botswana

5996

4

45

5

51

DRC

5584

58

17

..

25

Lesotho

874

18

38

..

44

Malawi

1810

38

18

14

45

Mauritius

4244

6

33

25

61

Mozambique

3979

33

25

13

42

Namibia

3075

13

33

15

55

Seychelles

    

..

..

..

South Africa

131127

4

32

19

64

Swaziland

    

..

..

..

Tanzania

8760

45

15

7

40

Zambia

3150

25

24

12

51

Zimbabwe

5608

20

25

17

50
           

Source: World Development Indicators 2001

Note: For Zimbabwe and Botswana the overall balance as a % of GDP refers to 1999

Table Five: SADC Countries’ Human Development Indices and Human Development Categories, 1998

HIGH HUMAN DEVELOMENT CATEGORY (0.800-1.000)

HDI rank

Country

HDI

1

Seychelles

0.808

MEDIUM HUMAN DEVELOPMENT CATEGORY (0.500 – 0.799)

HDI rank

Country

HDI

2

Mauritius

0.782

3

South Africa

0.718

4

Swaziland

0.672

5

Namibia

0.651

6

Botswana

0.613

7

Lesotho

0.583

8

Zimbabwe

0.570

SADC

0.538

LOW HUMAN DEVELOMENT CATEGORY (0.000-0.499)

HDI rank

Country

HDI

9

DR Congo

0.440

10

Zambia

0.429

11

Tanzania

0.422

12

Angola

0.419

13

Malawi

0.393

14

Mozambique

0.350

Source: SAPES Databank

Table Six: Exports and Imports and Trade Balance, 1995 (US$ million)

Country

Total Exports

Total Imports

Trade Balance

Angola

3 880

1 700

2 180

Botswana

2 098

1 880

218

DRC

1 705

2 259

- 554

Lesotho

614

988

- 374

Malawi

413

484

- 71

Mauritius

1 503

1 931

- 428

Mozambique

362

800

- 438

Namibia

1 700

1 900

- 200

Seychelles

27 861

27 030

- 831

South Africa

272

289

- 17

Swaziland

776

1 017

- 241

Tanzania

519

1 541

- 1 022

Zambia

1 186

1 244

- 58

Zimbabwe

1 849

2 660

- 811

Source: SAPES/UNDP/SADC, 1998: 25

*Dr. Khabele Matlosa is a senior lecturer, National University of Lesotho (NUL) and currently the Director, Research and Policy Studies, Southern African Political Economy Series (SAPES) Trust, Harare, Zimbabwe, Tel: (263-4) 252 962 (o), Fax: (263-4) 252 964, Email: Khabele@sapes.org.zw.

 

References

 

Ake, C. Democracy and Development, Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1996.

Amin, S. ‘Underdevelopment and Dependence in Black Africa: Origins and Contemporary’ in Cohen, D. and Daniel, J. (eds) Political Economy of Africa: Selected Readings, London, Longman.

Bourenane, N. ‘Prospects for Africa for an Alternative Approach to the Dominant Afro-Pessimism’ in Anyang’Nyong’o, P. 30 Years of Independence in Africa: the Lost decades?, Nairobi, Academy Science Publishers.

Chipeta, C (ed) Trade and Investment in Southern Africa, Harare, SAPES Books, 1998.

Chipeta, C. ‘Prospects for further economic integration in the SADC’, SAPEM, 13 (2), Nov. 1999.

Chipeta, C., CSIR and Imana Development, Review and Rationalisation of SADC Programme of Action, SADC Secretariat, Gaborone, Batswana, 1997.

Chipeta, C. and Davies, R. "Regional Relations and Cooperation Post-Apartheid: A Macro-Economic Framework Study", SADC Secretariat, Gaborone, Botswana, 1993 (mimeo).

Cilliers, J. "The NEPAD African Peer Review Mechanism: Prospects and Challenges" , Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria, South Africa, 2002 (mimeo).

Davies, R. "Key Issues in Reconstructing South-Southern African Economic Relations after Apartheid" CSAS Southern African perspectives working papers series, No. 2, 1990.

Davies, R. ‘Approaches to regional integration in the Southern African context’ Africa Insight, 24 (1), 1994.

Evans, D., Holmes, P. and Mandaza, I. SADC: The Cost of Non-Integration, Harare, SAPES Books.

Gibb, R. ‘Regional Integration in Post-Apartheid Southern Africa: the Case of Renegotiating the Southern African Customs Union’ Journal of Southern African Studies, 23 (1), March 1997.

Giddens, A. BBC Reith Lecture Series, 1999.

Hadjor, K. Dictionary of Third World Terms, London, Penguin Books.

Jones, E. and Whittingham, P. "Understanding the World Trade Organisation: Implications and Possibilities for the South", Foundation for Global Dialogue Occasional Paper No. 13, October 1998.

Koman, A. ‘Regional integration in West Africa: Achievements and prospects of ECOWAS’, SAPEM, 13 (2), Nov. 1999.

Leistner, E. ‘Regional cooperation in Sub-Saharan Africa with special refence to Southern Africa’ Africa Insight, 27 (2), 1997.

Lumumba-Kasongo, T. "Reconceptualizing the State as the Leading Agent of Development in the Context of Globalisation in Africa" African Journal of Political Science, 7(1), 2002.

Makgoba, W. African Renaissance, Tafelberg, Mafube, 1999.

Mandaza, I. ‘Southern Africa: The Political Economy of Transition’ SAPEM, 13 (2), Nov. 1999.

Mandaza, I. And Nabudere, D. (eds) Pan-Africanism and Integration in Africa, Harare: SAPES Books, 2002.

Mandaza, I., Tostensen, A. and Maphanyane, M. Southern Africa in Search of a Common Future: From the Conference to a Community, Gaborone, SADC Secretariat, 1994.

Matlosa, K. (ed) Migration and Development in Southern Africa: Policy Reflections, Harare, SAPES Books, 2001.

Matlosa, K. "Election Monitoring and Observation in Zimbabwe: Hegemony versus Sovereignty", African Journal of Political Science, 7(1), 2002.

Matlosa, K., Mwanza, A. and Kamidza, R. "Is NEPAD a Strategic Policy Response" Southern African Political and Economic Monthly (SAPEM) 14(10), 2002.

Matsebula, M. ‘SACU and SADC: Strategic Option for Future’, in Chipeta, Op.cit.

Mengisteab, K. ‘Dilemmas globalisation poses on Africa’ Paper presented at the CODESRIA Annual General Assembly, Dakar, Senegal 14-18 December 1998.

Mkandawire, T. "Globalisation and Africa’s unfinished Agenda" in SAPES/UNDP/SADC, Harare: SAPES Books, 1998.

Mkandawire, T. and Olukoshi, A. (eds) Between Liberalisation and Oppression: The politics of Structural in Africa, Dakar, CODESRIA Books, 1995.

Mkandawire, T. and Soludo, African perspectives on structural adjustment: Our Continent, our Future, Trenton, Africa World Press, 1999.

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), October 2001 (Mimeo).

Prah, K. ‘African Renaissance or Warlordism’ in Makgoba op.cit.

Oden, B. "South Africa in Southern Africa: Revisiting the Dynamo-Albatross debate", Paper presented the CSAS Conference on Development, Democracy and Aid, Cape Town, 22-23 November 1999.

Olukoshi, A. ‘Beyond Structural Adjustment in Africa’ SAPEM, 13 (4), Jan. 2000.

Rwegasira, D. "Economic Cooperation and Integration in Africa: Experiences and the Road Ahead" Paper presented at a Workshop on Understanding New Orders between old Borders, Cape Town, 30 Jan-1 Feb. 1998.

Tandon, Y. ‘Globalisation and Africa’s Options’, parts One and Two in AAPS Newsletters 3 (1), Jan-April, and 3 (2), May-August, 1998.

Sako, S. and Ogiogio, G. Africa: Major Development Challenges and their Capacity Building Dimensions, ACBF Occasional Paper No. 1, 2002.

SAPES/UNDP/SADC, Governance and Human Development in Southern Africa, Harare: SAPES Books, 1998.

SAPES/UNDP/SADC, Challenges and Opportunities for Regional Integration in Southern Africa, Harare: SAPES Books, 2000.

UNDP, Human Development Report, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

World Bank, Can Africa Claim the 21st Century, Washington, 2000