Common Market for Eastern and Southern African Countries: Multiplicity of Membership Issues and Choices

Abstract

The preferential trade agreement of Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) was formed in 1982 with the objective of achieving deeper integration. In 1994 COMESA member states agreed to form a free trade agreement. The free trade agreement came into effect after nine member states ratified it. In 2004, Rwanda and Burundi joined the free trade agreement and increased the membership size to 11. In 2009 COMESA was transformed into a customs union. The purpose of the article is to analyse how formation of the COMESA customs union affects the current state of multiplicity of membership in Southern and Eastern African countries. The article argues that multiplicity of membership hinders deeper integration. Based on the assumption that deeper regional integration can play a role in the development project of Eastern and Southern African countries, the article tries to make a cursory review of the overlap of membership among COMESA, Southern African Development Community (SADC), Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and East African Community (EAC) states. It tries to draw policy choices of the way forward to end the multiplicity of membership. The analysis of this article is based on the percentile of each member state's rate of export. It is not a percentile of the total regional exports. Not all COMESA member states have been analysed in this article. The article mainly focuses on those COMESA member states that treat COMESA as their main trading block in Africa and that also have multiple memberships in SADC, SACU and EAC.