Abstract:
Regional integration, which encompasses efforts by a group of countries
to promote their political, economic, social and cultural integration and
development, has been pursued in Africa since the early 1960s. However,
there is near unanimous agreement that regionalization has failed in Africa to
produce effective frameworks within which poverty and underdevelopment can be
mitigated. While the resolution of a number of issues, such as, political instability
and weak infrastructures is imperative, and holds prerequisite for the development
of Africa, the focus of the paper is on institutional and administrative mechanisms
that serve as the critical conduit through which the aforementioned issues must be
addressed. The paper argues that effective implementation of regional programmes
requires an institutional apparatus that is capable of dealing with the complexity
of policy-making and implementation processes between a variety of state and
societal actors at all levels of governance – supranational as well as national levels,
which characterize regional integration.
