The East Africa Community bloc has been ranked the best
integrated among the
eight Regional Economic Communities in Africa, while the Southern Africa Development Community was least integrated, according to the second Africa Regional Integration Index (ARII 2019) published last week.
eight Regional Economic Communities in Africa, while the Southern Africa Development Community was least integrated, according to the second Africa Regional Integration Index (ARII 2019) published last week.
Overall, the report shows low levels of integration on the continent, at an average index score of 0.327 out of 1.
The
report is published by the African Union, the United Nations Economic
Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank.
The
2019 Index, which builds on the first edition published in 2016,
provides up-to-date data on the status and progress of regional
integration in Africa.
The index
report says Africa is still particularly poorly integrated on the
productive and infrastructural dimensions, which are key aspects of the
foundations of regional integration.
The
ARII uses 16 indicators, grouped into five dimensions, to measure how
well each country and region is integrated with its neighbours.
The five dimensions are; free movement of
people, trade integration, productive integration, infrastructural
integration and macroeconomic integration. Free movement of people is
the strongest dimension with the weakest dimension being productive
integration.
FACTOR IN COVID-19
“Whereas
the Index edition we are releasing has data cut off points in 2019, the
Covid-19 pandemic has reopened the question of whether enough is being
done in advancing regional integration to help Africa withstand
systematic shocks such as the one being experienced today,” said Stephen
Karingi, Regional Integration Division Director at the ECA.
By
these metrics, South Africa is Africa’s most regionally integrated
country because it outperforms on productive and infrastructure
integration. But it underperforms on the free movement of people.
However, its score of just 0.625, is way ahead of the second best Kenya
(0.444) and third Rwanda (0.434).
The worst integrated countries are South Sudan and Eritrea doing poorly on almost every measure.
The
EAC’s scores on the five dimensions of regional integration had an
average score of 0.537 with strongest dimension being free movement of
people while productive integration was rated as weakest dimension with
an average of 0.434.
This belies the
strong performance of Kenya (0 .910) and Uganda (0.822) and is best
explained by the low positions of Burundi (near zero) and South Sudan (0
.073). Low performance in Burundi and Sierra Leone is principally
driven by their lack of commitment to liberalise.
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