Regional Integration in Southern and Eastern Africa A Review of Informal Cross Border Trade
External
November 30, 2020
Regional integration has a long history in Africa, revealing that the reasons or objectives for integrating have been evolving over time. In many cases, the motivation behind regional integration was driven by the political decolonisation of Africa, although some exceptions can be noted where economic motives triggered the initiative. The Southern and Eastern Regional Economic Communities (RECs) of the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA); the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on 12 June 2011 signed an agreement at a Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa to launch negotiations of an expanded Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The COMESA-EAC-SADC FTA, also referred to as the tripartite FTA (TFTA) will be the continent’s biggest FTA, comprising of 26 countries spanning from Cape Town to Cairo with an estimated market potential of over US$ 1 trillion.
