Domestic Challenges in South Africa Affecting Regional Integration

Resilience in regional economic growth in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) can potentially be increased through the implementation of a regional policy which emphasizes regional integration. This will include the removal of tariff and non‐tariff based barriers to trade through trade liberalization and designing more efficient spatial linkages that facilitate increased intra‐regional trade. However, resilience in the region's economic growth is hindered by sluggish implementation of regional trade liberalization and spatial integration policies, as tariff and non‐tariff barriers to trade remain. The aim of the paper is to evaluate regional integration in fostering resilience in economic growth through its enhancement of economic interaction between member states, as well as facilitating increased spatial connectivity and the efficient movement of intra‐regional trade. In this paper, case studies of regional integration models as applied in eight developing country regional trading blocs, including the SADC, are used to determine the effect of intra‐regional trade on the resilience of economic growth in the face of an external economic crisis, namely the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and subsequent recession. Results of the above analysis indicate that intra‐regional trade through regional integration accelerates a region's recovery of its pre‐shock growth path. Despite considerable intra‐regional trade, the recovery of the SADC is hindered by the sluggish post‐shock growth of South Africa, its dominant economy. Based on the findings, it is recommended that intra‐regional trade be strengthened between SADC member states through increased economic integration, trade facilitation through development corridors, and capacitating dynamic regional institutions to oversee economic resilience strategies based on adjustment and adaptation.

Regional Integration vs. Globalization: A Social Network Analysis of the Trade Within and Outside the Southern African Development Community (SADC)

This article analyses the dynamics and performance of regional economic integration in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). It proposes an innovative theoretical approach to the analysis of regionalism that refers to cooperation theory and takes the impact of external actors explicitly into account. The motivation for this research stems from the observation of a new wave of regionalism in the Global South. Many of these new or reformed regional integration organisations (RIOs) comprise of developing countries, particularly in Africa. In contrast to expectations of most mainstream integration theories, new regionalisms in the Southern Hemisphere have come into existence and show considerable degrees of dynamics and institutional performance. However, there is evidence that regionalisms in the Global South are less stable than in the North and not always entirely under control of regional actors only. This puzzling observation, of which the SADC gives an example, has motivated research for this article. Its central aim is to explain the recent integration dynamics and performance of the organisation in its key policy area, namely the economy. By applying a situation-structural approach to analyse and explain the development of institutionalised regional integration, the author argues that patterns of strong and asymmetric interdependence between regional and extra-regional actors may have an ambivalent impact on the genuine structure of regional cooperation problems, institution-building and institutional performance. The article illustrates and explains this on the example of SADC’s key economic integration projects: the SADC Free Trade Area and the scheduled SADC Customs Union.

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the role of economic integration and natural resources and foreign direct investment (FDI) complementarity in explaining economic growth in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).Design/methodology/approachThe study employed the ordinary least square-random effects and the generalized two-stage least square instrumental variables (IV) regression to examine the relationship between the variables.FindingsThe authors find that regional economic integration and natural resource abundance are essential for promoting economic growth. The results further show a potential resource curse phenomenon, offset by the complementary effect of FDI in resource-rich countries. The findings are robust after conditioning for different measures of institutional quality.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest the need for deeper regional trade integration and international cooperation, prudent natural resource management and concerted effort toward economic diversification.Originality/valueMany studies have examined the determinants of economic growth in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). However, these studies did not incorporate or assess the potential of economic integration in the region. Moreover, studies that examined the growth effects of FDI did not assess the complementary role of the region's natural resource endowment which potentially drives FDI inflows. This study fills these gaps and provides a robust analysis of economic growth drivers in the region.

Regional integration has manifested itself to be an integral part of Africa's postcolonial economic growth blueprints. It was viewed as a mechanism for African states to enhance their development and work collectively, improve their cooperation, and enhance peace and security. Nevertheless, regional integration initiatives are often seen to succeed when spearheaded by regional hegemons. By narrowing this to southern Africa, from 1994 after the first‐ever democratic elections and after also becoming a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), South Africa was regarded as a state capable of spearheading regional integration. This was a result of its relatively robust economy and military power in comparison with other SADC states. As a result, it was poised to utilize these vast resources to the benefit of the SADC. However, over the last two and a half decades, its regional stance has often come under a lot of scrutinizing due to its ambiguous foreign policy doctrine, particularly in southern Africa. Basically, its post‐1994 foreign policy projections towards the region have often not been implemented as attested and have often lacked clear articulation. Nevertheless, this paper argues that South Africa has made positive strides in the SADC's regional integration endeavors post its democratic transition. Its vast regional investments and diplomatic and military interventions have played a crucial role in the development and security reforms in the region. Although it is portrayed as a regional hegemon, it has nevertheless used its regional standpoint to the benefit of the region and further contributed to regional integration post the apartheid era.

In March 2019, Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe were hard hit by Tropical Cyclone Idai resulting in loss of lives, livelihoods and damage to infrastructure. Drought, flooding and cyclones are on the increase in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and their destructive trail threatens SADC’s common agenda of trade liberalization through regional economic integration. This chapter focuses on Zimbabwe and South Africa’s intervention measures against the adverse effects of Tropical Cyclone Idai. The main problem is that SADC member states appear unprepared to mitigate the adverse effects of tropical cyclones. The chapter questions the extent to which Zimbabwe and South Africa used the legal provisions of the SADC Treaty of 1992, the Hyogo Framework of Action (2005–2015) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) (2015–2030) to manifest regional cooperation in disaster risk management. The chapter argues that if SADC member states continue failing to detect vulnerability from natural disasters, this will prevent the region from effectively building a culture of resilience for disaster risk reduction and management. The chapter recommends that SADC member states should adopt vulnerability and resilience approaches to enable their countries to better understand the scope and violent behaviour of extreme weather events such as tropical cyclones.KeywordsSADCLegal frameworkCyclone IdaiRiskVulnerabilityMitigationResilience

This study investigated the implications of regional economic integration on economic growth in Nigeria over the period 2001 - 2019 using the ARDL methodology. Exports by Nigeria to WAMZ’s member countries as a percentage of total exports, imports to Nigeria from WAMZ’s member countries as a percentage of total import and degree of openness of Nigeria’s economy to WAMZ’s economy are the independent variables while growth rate of GDP was the dependent variable. The findings from the study show that regional economic integration has less implication on economic growth in Nigeria. This is evidenced in the negative relationship between exports to WAMZ member countries by Nigeria and economic growth and the negative relationship between imports from WAMZ member countries to Nigeria and economic growth. Though the degree of openness of Nigeria’s economy to WAMZ’s regional economy was positively related to economic growth in Nigeria both in the short and long runs, the negative link of exports and imports with economic growth and their insignificance show that trade a crucial variable in regional integration has retarding implications on growth in Nigeria over the period. The study attributed similarities in exports and imports among the integrating countries as one major factor that had contributed to the low gain from regional integration by Nigeria and other countries in the region. Based on these findings, the study recommends: openness of the Nigerian economy to WAMZ member countries and the industrialisation of the Nigerian economy as possible measures of increasing gains from regional economic integration.

In 1980, the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) was established with the major objectives of decreasing economic dependence on the apartheid regime and fostering regional development. The strategy adopted for meeting these objectives was regional development and cooperation. In 1992, SADCC was reborn as the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The member states decided the time had come to move the region toward the creation of one regional market. Since market integration has failed miserably on the African continent, this article argues that a different approach should be adopted — regional integration. Regional integration is defined as a process that allows member states to have access to each other’s markets on a voluntary basis and at various degrees. Economic, political, social and cultural benefits are realised from this interaction. Since regional development and cooperation remains a central component of the SADC strategy, this article proposes a way forward that would enhance regional development, cooperation and integration. This includes (1) the need for the SADC member states to make a serious political commitment to regional development, cooperation and integration; (2) the creation of an environment of political and economic stability; and (3) enhanced national and regional development. Keywords : SADC, regional integration, regional cooperation, regional development , Southern Africa

The theoretical literature concerning the economic effects of regional integration has made considerable progress since the seminal work by Viner (1950). However, the majority of theoretical and empirical research in this area continues to focus on the static effects of Preferential Trade groupings (PTGs). Designed as a selected survey, this article suggests that, for developing countries like ASEAN, the more relevant areas pertain to the effects of regional integration, as well as the implications of PTGs in a dynamic-policy-reform context. It is argued that ASEAN will continue to benefit from AFTA and further deepening measures through the effects on reinforcing macroeconomic stability, encouraging investment flows, fostering technology transfer, reducing intra-regional transactions costs to doing business, and supporting policy reform in the region. ASEAN's new member states will likewise be able to benefit from the regional integration programme in Southeast Asia. Finally, we predict that ASEAN regional integration will help ASEAN countries overcome periodic crises by, among other things, locking in regional economic reform and providing information sharing regarding crisis management. I. Introduction Although the body of research on economic reform in developing countries is impressive (see, for example, James, Naya and Meier 1991; Edwards 1993; Rodrik 1996), one area that the economics literature has tended to neglect has been the relationship between economic reform and formal regional economic integration through preferential trade groupings (PTGs). To the extent that this literature focuses on the developing world at all, it is mainly aimed at the economic effects of integration agreements on these countries (for example Kreinin and Plummer 1992; Anderson and Snape 1994; Cuyvers 1995; Ariff 1996), descriptions and taxonomies of such arrangements (World Trade Organization 1995; Pomfret 1997) or applications to developing-country groupings but with the use of theoretical and empirical models more relevant to a developed-country context (Brown, Deardorf and Stem 1995; DeRosa 1995; Adams 1995). The recent strain in the literature focusing on 'natural' economic blocs, which provides a key role for geography and evidence from pre-integration trading patterns (Krugman 1991 and Frankel 1992), circumvents the need for standard neoclassical assumptions and parametric estimation - an advantage for developing countries in which such estimation is often difficult - but at the cost of weak conclusions with respect to the effects on static resource allocation (Pomfret 1997). Moreover, the core academic debate over regional economic groupings as building vs. stumbling blocs (Lawrence 1991) largely skips over the important relationship between regional integration and domestic economic policy formation in developing countries. This void in the literature is particularly problematic for the ASEAN countries, which have been strengthening regional economic integration at the same time that they embrace extensive policy reform. If the PTG movement were implicitly a threat to these economic reform programmes, officials would presumably be following contradictory policy stances. On the other hand, if formal PTG agreements strengthen economic reform, such accords would reinforce the domestic policy agenda and, hence, should be advocated, especially if they are also able to generate benefits. The purpose of this article* is to review the extensive theoretical and conceptual literature pertaining to regional integration and consider applications to developing countries in general and ASEAN in particular. As research in this area is vast, we limit ourselves to a selective review of old and new approaches to regional integration, with a focus on the so-called dynamic and policy dimensions. Section II reviews basic definitions of various regional groupings and associated effects of preferential treatment, followed by a discussion of static and aspects of regional integration. …

Cohesion, (non-)Domination, and Regional Organisations in the EU-SADC EPA Negotiations

Building, bridging, blocking: the EU’s approach towards sub- regional integration in its broader neighbourhood

Throughout southern Africa the most commonly cited justification for regional economic integration is the small size of the region's individual economies. This chapter examines the region's most important integrative institutions: Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Southern African Customs Union (SACU). SADC is the successor organisation to the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC) whose primary objective was to reduce the region's dependence on apartheid South Africa. SADCC also failed in its endeavours to promote meaningful progress towards regional economic integration. In August 1996 eleven out of the then twelve SADC members signed a 'Protocol on Trade' which committed signatories to establish a Free Trade Area (FTA). The FTA will result in a loss of customs revenues, upon which many of the poorer SADC countries depend. SACU has its origins firmly embedded in a colonial policy that aimed to incorporate the High Commission Territories (HCTs) into South Africa.

As one of the largest industries in the world, the tourism industry has a positive economic impact on countries. This is especially true for developing countries where tourism is an essential driver for economic growth and development. In this regard Africa and specifically Southern Africa has plenty to offer tourists. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is a regional economic community comprising fifteen member states, namely Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe (SADC, 2017). The tourism industry in the SADC region has been growing rapidly and the region has prioritized tourism as a means of promoting economic development and regional integration (SADC, 2017). For the fulfillment of these goals, a protocol on the development of tourism was created. The protocol aims to use tourism as a means for sustainable development drawing on the region?s natural and cultural resources (SADC, 2017). Southern Africa has large rural areas and many communities in need of local economic development (LED). LED is thus an on-going concern. Route tourism is often seen as a means to attract tourists to rural areas and to ensure that product owners, community members and governments are involved in a coordinated way (World Bank, 2017). The paper intends to reflect on the local economic development activities of two areas in Southern Africa where local economic development tourism has been contemplated. This includes the Maloti Drakensberg Tourism Route in South Africa and the Four Deserts Tourism Route in southern Namibia. The aim of the paper is to contribute theoretically and empirically to the development of approaches that enable growth for rural areas and to identify how LED has been implemented or not in the two study areas. Although the paper reflects a southern African perspective it will provide valuable insights applicable to other local economic tourism initiatives.

Regional integration and economic integration are important components for development process. It appears that there have been renewed interests in regional integration within the Southern African region in the last couple of years and high ambitions to set out plans of regional integration and economic integration. Tax harmonisation is regarded as a basic requirement for economic integration. In view of that, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) memorandum of understanding on cooperation in taxation and related matters (the memorandum) of 2002 is seen as one of the tools to achieve harmonisation and coordination of taxation laws within the region. Article 6 of the memorandum deals with the coordination and harmonisation of indirect taxes. The present paper examines the extent to which harmonisation of value added tax (VAT) laws and policies can be achieved as envisaged by Article 6 of the memorandum.

Regional Economic Integration and Developing Countries: The Example of South African Regional Integration - SADC