African Regional Economic Communities Research Articles

Trends in household out-of-pocket health expenditures and their underlying determinants: explaining variations within African regional economic communities from countries panel data

BackgroundThe persistently high out-of-pocket health spending (OOPHE) in Africa raise significant concern about the prospect of reaching SDG health targets and UHC. The study examines the convergence hypothesis of OOPHE in 40 African countries from 2000 to 2019.MethodsWe exploit the logt\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${\ ext{log }}t$$\\end{document}, club clustering, and merging methods on a panel of dataset obtained from the World Development Indicators, the World Governance Indicators, and the World Health Organization. Then, we employ the multilevel linear mixed effect model to examine whether countries' macro-level characteristics affect the disparities in OOPHE in the African regional economic communities (RECs).ResultsThe results show evidence of full panel divergence, indicating persistent disparities in OOPHE over time. However, we found three convergence clubs and a divergent group for the OOPHE per capita and as a share of the total health expenditure. The results also show that convergence does not only occur among countries affiliated with the same regional economic grouping, suggesting disparities within the regional groupings. The findings reveal that countries' improved access to sanitation and quality of governance, increased childhood DPT immunization coverage, increased share of the elderly population, life expectancy at birth, external health expenditure per capita, and ICT (information and communication technology) significantly affect within-regional groupings’ disparities in OOPHE per capita. The results also show that an increasing countries’ share of elderly and younger populations, access to basic sanitation, ICT, trade GDP per capita, life expectancy at birth, childhood DPT immunization coverage, and antiretroviral therapy coverage have significant impacts on the share of OOPHE to total health expenditure within the regional groupings.ConclusionTherefore, there is a need to develop policies that vary across the convergence clubs. These countries should increase their health services coverage, adopt planned urbanization, and coordinate trade and ICT access policies. Policymakers should consider hidden costs associated with access to childhood immunization services that may lead to catastrophic health spending.

Factors influencing inequality in government health expenditures within African regional economic communities

BackgroundThe unequal distribution of government health spending within African regional economic groupings is a significant barrier to achieving Universal Health Coverage and reaching health-related Sustainable Development targets. It also hampers the progress toward achieving the African Union’s vision of an integrated and prosperous Africa, free of its heavy disease burden. Based on panel data from 36 countries nested into eight Regional Economic Communities (RECs), this study probes the effects of countries' macro-level factors on government health expenditure disparities within eight regional economic communities from 2000 to 2019.MethodWe use the multilevel linear mixed-effect method to show whether countries' trade gains, life expectancy at birth, poverty, urbanization, information and communication technology, and population aging worsen or reduce the differences for two government health expenditure indicators.ResultsThe insignificant effect of GDP per capita suggests that in most regional economic groupings, the health sector is still not considered a high-priority sector regarding overall government expenditures. Countries' poverty levels and urbanization increase the domestic general government health expenditure disparities as a percentage of general government expenditure within the regional groupings. However, trade gains and ICT diffusion reduce these disparities. Furthermore, the results reveal that external health expenditure per capita and life expectancy at birth positively impact within-regional inequalities in the domestic general government health expenditure per capita. In contrast, GDP per capita and trade gains tend to reduce them.ConclusionsThis study enriches the research on the determinants of government health expenditure inequality in Africa. Policies that can spur growth in trade and ICT access should be encouraged. Countries should also make more efforts to reduce poverty. Governments should also develop policies promoting economic growth and planned urbanization.

Region‐centric infrastructure policies and the regional politics surrounding Chinese railway projects: Insights from the East Africa region

AbstractThe African Union and regional economic communities have identified infrastructure development, not least the enhancement of railway systems, as a key priority to advance regional and continental integration policy. The keen interest of Chinese actors in Africa's railway sector is largely welcomed as conducive to increasing infrastructural connectivity within and between Africa's sub‐regions. This article argues that regional railway projects must be assessed against regional political contexts, which crucially co‐determine the degree of coordination and cooperation in the context of region‐centric infrastructure policies. Competing national political agendas, exacerbated mostly by China's bilateral engagement with East African Community member states, has intensified East Africa's infrastructure race. This has resulted in a poorly coordinated standard‐gauge railway project along the East African Northern Corridor; consequently, its economic viability is in doubt.Related ArticlesIkeanyibe, Okechukwu Marcellus. 2018. “Bureaucratic Politics and the Implementation of Liberalization Reforms in Nigeria: A Study of the Unbundling and Reorganization of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.” Politics & Policy 46(2): 263–94. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12249.Iwuoha, Victor Chidubem, Nneka Ifeoma Okafor, and Emmanuel Ifeadike. 2022. “State Regulation of Nigeria's Maritime Ports: Exploring the Impact of Port Concession on Both the Regulator and the Operators.” Politics & Policy 50(5): 1032–52. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12495.McNamara, Madeleine W., John C. Morris, and Martin Mayer. 2014. “Expanding the Universe of Multi‐Organizational Arrangements: Contingent Coordination and the Deepwater Horizon Transportation Challenges.” Politics & Policy 42(3): 346–68. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12073.

Assessing Infrastructure Integration in African Regional Economic Communities (RECs): Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities

Assessing Infrastructure Integration in African Regional Economic Communities (RECs): Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities

An Index of African Monetary Integration (IAMI)

ABSTRACT This study improves the African Regional Integration Index (ARII) proposed by the African Union, the African Development Bank, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa by providing a theoretical framework and addressing shortcomings related to the weighting and aggregation of the indicator. This article measures monetary integration in the eight African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) by constructing an Index of African Monetary Integration (IAMI). It proposes an optimal currency area as a theoretical framework and uses a panel approach to appreciate the dynamics of the index over different periods of time.

Towards regional scientific integration in Africa? Evidence from co-publications

Regional scientific integration is a critical pathway for the development of an integrated African research area and knowledge-based society. On the African continent, progress in scientific production and integration has remained limited, mostly led by a global or international agenda, and bound to a few top publishing nations. The high-level policy commitments and the accumulated policies and strategies developed and pursued under the various intertwined sub-regional economic groupings have, to date, only diversely contributed to policy alignment and coordination in the area of science, technology, and innovation (STI) across Africa. In this context, this paper provides a first and hence original assessment of the role of region-specific factors in shaping scientific collaboration on the continent. For this purpose, our study builds upon the proximity approach to analyse the determinants of scientific collaboration between African countries, using co-publications data from Thomson Reuters' Web of Science database as a proxy of such collaboration. Our results suggest that the majority of African regional economic communities (RECs) have not yet had a significant effect on scientific co-publication. Nevertheless, some important region-specific factors do seem to be at play, such as a shared ethnical language, membership in the African and Malagasy Council for Higher Education (CAMES), and the presence of a common European partner as a third partner in co-publication. Existing policies aimed at the development of an Africa-wide research area should aim to leverage existing and emerging regional excellence networks and novel coordination models to accelerate the process of scientific integration in Africa.

African Union and Regional Economic Communities: Problems, Benefits and Prospects of Collaborations for Integration

Introduction. African Union’s regional economic communities are stronghold for the African continent towards economic integration in various sub-regions and sectors of the African people. Their efforts have further deepen both trade and political interests among them which have equally boosted the integration drive of the African Union for the overall benefits of the Africans. Their moves have articulated many incentive, for more investments and attraction of Foreign Direct Investment that have brought continental reforms like stabilization, market policy, liberalization and privatisation methods adopted for regional arrangements to increase both private and public investments. Methods and materials. The paper adopts secondary source of data to elicit information while it makes use of integration theory to Midwife the import for the study towards economic, monetary market development and political union in African. Analysis and Results. The paper posits to examine their areas of dimensions, problems and prospects for collaboration to maximize economic goals and objectives which include security governance, economic growth, etc. The paper identifies problems like over concentration with the regional economic communities and their attendant peculiarities, while it notes the prospects of joint activities between the African Union and the regional economic Communities to build their capacities, harmonize and coordinate their institutions towards collaborations.

African Data Protection Laws: Current Regulatory Approaches, Policy Initiatives, and the Way Forward

Data protection law is experiencing a global rise. Whilst setting the boundaries for public and private data processors, it has become a vital factor for individual protection and innovation alike. The quest for adequate data protection regimes is on-going, not only, but also on the African continent. Since 2001, the majority of African states have drafted and enacted data protection laws. Hard law and soft law instruments have been developed by the African Union and the African Regional Economic Communities. Regularly, EU-style legislation has been used as a source of inspiration – a process actively pushed for by the EU. Against this background, this study evaluates the current state of data protection law and data protection policy in Africa, questions the process of legal transplantation, and favours the consideration of a unique African approach to data protection. Thereby, this study is also a story about alternative routes to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which are – for many reasons – not easy to take. Africa, African Union, African Regional Economic Communities, Data Protection, Privacy, GDPR

Opportunities for Gender Equality in the African Continental Free Trade Area: Drawing Lessons from COMESA

Abstract The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which has been signed by 54 out of the 55 African countries, seeks to create a single continental market for goods and services and facilitate the free movement of people on the continent, thereby boosting and enhancing the competitiveness of intra-African trade. However, while the Agreement Establishing the AfCFTA, under Article 3 (e), emphasises that one of the general objectives of the AfCFTA is to promote gender equality, experiences in other African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) FTAs have proven that gender and gender equality have not been adequately mainstreamed in implementing Free Trade Areas which has resulted in gender inequalities in international trade and commerce. Consequently, the majority of women have been left marginalised in trade and faced with serious challenges in accessing opportunities created by regional trade agreements. This paper sought to examine the potential of the AfCFTA to promote gender equality in Africa through the promotion of intra-African trade opportunities. Using secondary data sources, it drew from the experiences of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) in mainstreaming gender in regional trade to proffer recommendations for the AfCFTA. The concepts of gender equality, gender mainstreaming and trade liberalisation were utilised for conceptual analysis. Recommendations of the research are key in presenting possible options for implementing gender-sensitive measures and strategic interventions that address the differentiated implications of the AfCFTA on both men and women such that the AfCFTA delivers more transformative, inclusive and sustainable economic growth and development in Africa.

Africa Blue Economy Strategies Integrated in Planning to Achieve Sustainable Development at National and Regional Economic Communities (RECs)

The purpose of this article is to map-out African Union Member Countries and Regional Economic Communities engaged in Blue Economy. This engagement would provide some directed actions on how Blue Economy is contributing to achieving Sustainable Development in Africa. The methodology to analyze the Blue Economy data is based on “Sociographic, Type of activities, Intellectual Property focus and Business Model development, Descriptive Statistics, Business Models, Ranking of existing projects by business and innovation readiness”. Additional data obtained from Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and National Blue Economy Strategies and online internet search. The Blue Economy cuts-across several industries, sectors, and thematic areas. This inherently creates complexity when attempting to understand the extent of its socio-economic context in aspiration of development achievement. The effect of human dependence on Blue Economy resources is not always monetary. Some of the people use the resources for artisanal purposes, for exchange and trade, while others utilize it for the recreational and religious benefits associated with the blue natural resources. The well-being of people is a central pillar of the Blue Economy resulting in an immediate need to understand the socioeconomics of the Blue Economy as well as how to measure changes, or progress, associated with it for development achievement. The planning aspect of Blue Economy requires strategic interventions at local, national, and regional levels that spur integration aspects of the Blue Economy into development achievement.

Eliminating Non-tariff Barriers in the African Continental Free Trade Area: Lessons and Experiences from African Regional Economic Communities

Eliminating Non-tariff Barriers in the African Continental Free Trade Area: Lessons and Experiences from African Regional Economic Communities

Building Peace among Monitors? The Monitoring and Implementation of Zimbabwe’s Global Political Agreement

Signatories, guarantors and stakeholders of peace treaties and global political agreements (GPA) need reliable information on the agreement’s implementation to track progress, ensure compliance and prevent renewed conflict. Implementation monitoring mechanisms (IMMs) are, therefore, an important component of peace and transitional governance processes. Whereas monitoring can be entrusted to an independent third party, the signatories of Zimbabwe’s GPA set up a Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC). This article outlines the implementation of the GPA and discusses the hybrid design and workings of JOMIC, which sought to build peace among monitors from power-sharing parties, who jointly observed the agreement’s implementation. It argues that JOMIC was not a viable substitution for an independent IMM despite having some merit in observing political violence and gathering information for the power-sharing parties. JOMIC’s basic concept of permitting political elites to monitor their own compliance with the agreement was impractical, its proceedings non-transparent and its outputs of little use to guarantors and stakeholders. The absence of an official independent IMM, for which civil society monitors could not fully compensate, impeded the transitional governance process and its facilitation by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which was meant to guarantee that the GPA was implemented. Zimbabwe’s GPA offers cautionary lessons for the design of implementation mechanisms that serve multiple purposes, which can compromise the quality of monitoring. It points to the need to institutionalise implementation monitoring in the African peace and security architecture to improve the ability of the African Union and regional economic communities to guarantee that agreements that they facilitate are implemented.

Africanisation of international investment law for sustainable development: challenges

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to critically examine the move to Africanise international investment law (IIL) aimed at promoting sustainable development on the continent.Design/methodology/approachThe study analyses the move by African countries to “Africanise” IIL by incorporating specific and innovative provisions and features in their international investment agreements (IIAs) for the benefit of African economies. This is evidenced by provisions in African regional investment instruments such as the 2007 Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa Investment Agreement and the 2008 Economic Community of West African States Supplementary Act on Investments produced by the different African regional economic communities (RECs), new-generation IIAs such as the 2016 Nigeria-Morocco IIA and the China-Tanzania IIA and the African Union’s Pan-African Investment Code 2016. The common features of these instruments include linking the objective of investment promotion and protection to sustainable development; excluding portfolio investments; including provisions on investor-obligations; and reserving wide scope of regulatory space for host-states, including the ability to take emergency measures without incurring liability to investors. Some of these provisions are rare in IIAs.FindingsThe study finds that, while the efforts are commendable, there are real challenges. Firstly, there are inconsistencies in the regimes existing on the continent due to differences in the contents of the international investment instruments promulgated by the different RECs, and also differences in the content of IIAs signed by some member-states of the RECs with countries external to the RECs. Secondly, there are governance gaps and a lack of enforcement in practice, which would undermine the effectiveness of the laws being forged. Thirdly, the Africanised IIL alone would not attract investment if other important determinants, such as critical infrastructure, remain lacking. Fourthly, there is under-representation of Africa in the arbitral institutions that develop and enrich the laws, which, if it continues, would undermine the effectiveness of the Africanisation provisions being included in IIAs.Research limitations/implicationsWhile the research discusses both law and policy, more is discussed of the law, owing to space limitation.Practical implicationsIt is anticipated that this research will impact the content of the investment protocol under the African continental free trade area and beyond and will prompt review of existing and future IIAs by member states of the various RECs to align them for consistency. It is also hoped that this research will impact the review of various investment instruments of the RECs with the aim of harmonising them. It is further hoped that this research would contribute to addressing the challenges that militate against the achievement of the goals of Africanising ILL for sustainable development.Originality/valueThe study is original. It has not been published previously and the authors have found no existing publication that addresses the issues covered in this study.

The emergence of regulatory capitalism in Africa

As part of conceptualizing a form of capitalism specific to the African continent, this paper offers an institutional study of the development of regulatory institutions in Africa, suggested by and suggestive to current theoretical accounts of regulation and its relationship to capitalism. Recent scholarship has sketched a vision of regulatory capitalism that has much traction in the now-emerged discipline of governance but less in that of economics. That vision depends upon functioning regulatory institutions and effective enforcement strategies. Drawing from both disciplines and from the varieties of capitalism literature, this paper examines how and to what extent the African continent can be characterized as a regulatory region. One of the processes by which Africa has become a regulatory region is the founding of public regulatory agencies. Another is the growth and spread of firms and practices associated with regulatory capitalism. Reflective of these processes, attention at both national and regional levels within Africa to the establishment and operation of competition regimes, to complementary regulatory regimes (with attention here to the telecommunications and public procurement fields), and to the rise and significance of African regional economic communities provides evidence for envisioning Africa as a regulatory region. This evidence suggests that the exploration of a distinctively African variety of regulatory capitalism is warranted.

Determinants of poverty: a relative panel data analysis among African regional economic communities

The study compares the effects of macroeconomic factors on poverty among African regional economic communities using panel data from 1991 to 2018. A fixed effects model results indicate that from the whole sample, all variables affect poverty. However, individualistic regional economic community characteristics affect poverty differently. The results show that while all factors are important when countries are considered as a single total sample, the effects of particular factors vary from one regional economic community to another signifying the importance of regional economic community characteristics heterogeneity. This implies different policies should be implemented to reduce poverty based on each country's regional belonging. Conclusively, intervening policies implemented to reduce poverty do not yield the same results for countries in different regional economic communities, meaning this classification of countries by regions matters and thus the determinant macroeconomic factors suitable for each region need to be identified first before implementation.

Determinants of poverty: a relative panel data analysis among African regional economic communities

Determinants of poverty: a relative panel data analysis among African regional economic communities

Southern social world-regionalisms: The place of health in nine African regional economic communities

This article presents key results from a comparative qualitative Social Policy study of nine African regional economic communities’ (RECs) regional health policies. The article asks to what extent has health been incorporated into RECs’ public policy functions and actions, and what similarities and differences are evident among the RECs. Utilising a World Health Organization (WHO) framework for conceptualising health systems, the research evidence routes the article’s arguments towards the following principal conclusions. First, the health sector is a key component of the public policy functions of most of the RECs. In these RECs, innovations in health sector organisation are notable; there is considerable regulatory, organisational, resourcing and programmatic diversity among the RECs alongside under-resourcing and fragmentation within each of them. Second, there are indications of important tangible benefits of regional cooperation and coordination in health, and growing interest by international donors in regional mechanisms through which to disburse health and -related Official Development Assistance (ODA). Third, content analysis of RECs’ regional health strategies suggests fairly minimal strategic ambitions as well as significant limitations of current approaches to advancing effective and progressive health reform. The lack of emphasis on universal health care and reliance on piecemeal donor funding are out of step with approaches and recommendations increasingly emphasising health systems development, sector-wide approaches (SWAPs) and primary health care as the bedrock of health services expansion. Overall, the health component of RECs’ development priorities is consistent with an instrumentalist social policy approach. The development of a more comprehensive sustainable world-regional health policy is unlikely to come from the African Continental Free-Trade Area, which lacks requisite social and health clauses to underpin ‘positive’ forms of regional integration.

Dispute Settlement Mechanisms in African Regional Economic Communities: Lessons and New Developments

Abstract African regional trade agreements often provide for dispute settlement mechanisms and procedures that should be followed. They also establish judicial bodies or tribunals for the respective African Regional Economic Communities. Despite the existence of judicial bodies, African governments do not usually litigate against each other on trade-related disputes. However, the few cases adjudicated by the regional judicial bodies are insightful of how contemporary trade disputes shape the development of community law. With reference to case law, this article presents lessons from regional judicial bodies. Notwithstanding the lessons learnt, there are challenges too. In response to the challenges, new developments on the continent, adopted through the African Continental Free Trade Area signal a move towards respecting rules-based trade through ensuring legal predictability and certainty for trade dispute settlement. Thus, this article will also provide a detailed analysis of the dispute settlement mechanism under the African Continental Free Trade Area, a system akin to World Trade Organisation.

An Index of African Monetary Integration (IAMI)

This study improves the African Regional Integration Index (ARII) proposed by the African Union, the African Development Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa by providing a theoretical framework and addressing shortcomings related to weighting and aggregation of the indicator. This paper measures monetary integration in the eight African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) by constructing an Index of African Monetary Integration (IAMI). It proposes an Optimal Currency Area as theoretical framework and uses a panel approach to appreciate the dynamics of the index over different periods of time. The findings show that: (i) inflation and finance (trade and mobility) present the highest (lowest) score while ECOWAS is (EAC and IGAD are) the highest (least) performing. (ii) Surprisingly, in most RECs, the highest contributors to wealth creation are not the top performers in regional monetary integration. (iii) The RECs in Africa are characterized by a stable monetary integration which is different from the gradual process usually observed in monetary integration because with the exception of the EAC and UMA, the dynamics of IAMI show a steady trend in the overall index across time. Policy implications are discussed.

Military expenditure and security outcome convergence in African regional economic communities: evidence from the convergence club algorithm

Abstract This study investigates the degree of convergence in military expenditure and security outcome for the eight regional economic communities (RECs) of Africa spanning 1995–2015. We utilise the methodology of the Phillips and Sul convergence test to each of the region’s military expenditure and security outcome. The results of this study suggest that the convergence club of military expenditure and security outcome cannot be generalised across the RECs of African countries, and likewise for the overall convergence of the regions. The nonconvergence of the full sample and the presence of the different subgroup convergence clubs for both variables imply that RECs of African countries are characterised by individual factors which in turn determine an idiosyncratic course of their own path for defence and security policies. The empirics further confirm that the regions appear to have chosen dissimilar paths for their defence and security measures. Considering the cross-border and multiple security challenges facing the continent, this study recommend that African RECs harmonise their defence and security policies in order to achieve a convergence for a concerted security threats facing the regions.