Economic Community Of Central African States Research Articles

The Fetters of Financial Neocolonialism in African Countries

African countries are actively involved in the formation of a multipolar world, gradually gaining political and economic independence from European states. Within the framework of the concept of neocolonialism, the main stages of the transformation of relations between former colonies and former colonizers are analyzed. In recent decades, financial dependence, which came to be called financial neocolonialism, has become an increasingly obvious and powerful instrument of economic pressure from metropolitan states. Thus, through transnational corporations and currency unions, European countries, on the one hand, pumped out rent from African countries in the sectors of extraction and primary processing of minerals, monopolized consumer markets, and on the other hand, actually took control of the financial development of many African countries, preventing the formation of financial sovereignty. Such unions primarily include two associations: the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). The development of financial technologies is considered by some researchers as a possible way to escape colonial dependence. However, aware of these risks, European countries are advocating a counter-attack strategy that extends to controlling or limiting the use of financial technologies and cryptocurrency markets in particular. Possible solutions have been proposed to overcome this dependence by strengthening economic ties between African countries and Russia and China. The BRICS+ association, which already includes several African countries, could serve as a basis for all future initiatives.

Determinants of Trade Flow in the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS): Does Governance Matter?

Abstract Subject and purpose of work: This study analyzes the determinants of intra-ECCAS trade, with special attention paid to the role of institutional quality from 1996 to 2021. Materials and methods: The study conducts descriptive analysis and utilizes a Negative Binomial Pseudo Maximum Likelihood to analyze the determinants of intra-ECCAS trade. Results: The results suggest that gross domestic product (GDP), population, time taken for export shipment in the exporting countries and the bilateral real exchange rate of the importing partner country enhance intra-ECCAS trade flow. On the other hand, distance, two trading partners being landlocked, time for importing countries and bilateral real exchange rate of the exporting partner discourage this. Furthermore, the findings reveal that institutions are vital to intra-ECCAS trade. Conclusions: T he key d rivers of intra-ECCAS t rade a re GDP, population, t ime t aken for export shipment in the exporting countries, bilateral real exchange rate of the importing partner country, and institutions’ quality measures.

Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea and the Role of African Regional Organisations in Ensuring Security of Maritime Shipping

The first decade of the XXI century witnessed a rise in piracy in some regions of the world, including the Gulf of Guinea. The purposes of this article are to find out historical reasons of the emergence of piracy in off the West coast of Africa and to analyse the participation of African regional organisations in the struggle for ensuring security of maritime shipping in the Gulf of Guinea. The initial surge in incidence of attacks against merchant ships was caused by anti-governmental groups, which adopted pirate tactics. Later, piracy off the shores of Central and West Africa turned into a profitable type of organised crime. Pirates of the Gulf of Guinea inflicted significant damage to economic development of the countries of the region and began to pose a threat to shipping off the West African shore of the Atlantic. The article describes how interregional cooperation with external partnership was organised to counter transborder nature of pirate activities. Based on regional organisations, specifically, the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the maritime security summit held on June 24–25, 2013 in Yaoundé adopted the Code of Conduct, which contained a list of measures to combat piracy. The Code of Conduct envisaged close cooperation among the nations of Central and West Africa with help of “external” partners in order to ensure rapid reaction to counter pirate attacks. Research of the problem indicates that only consecutive realisation of these measures allowed to reach a tangible result almost 10 years later, namely, in 2022. Nevertheless, if control over waters of the Gulf of Guinea is weakened, piracy may resurge, because its social and economic roots still exist.

Trade–peace conundrum in Africa: The moderating effects of poverty and inequality

AbstractThis paper examines the trade–peace nexus in Africa and ascertains how poverty and inequality tilt the relationship in the eight regional (economic) blocs in Africa, viz. the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Community of Sahel–Saharan States (CEN–SAD), the East African Community (EAC), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), from 1998 to 2020 using the Driscoll–Kraay estimate. The study contributes to the literature by disaggregating the peace effect of trade in Africa by the regional (economic) blocs to allow for in‐depth and context‐specific analysis. The paper also expands the scope of existing studies by examining the direct effect of poverty and inequality on peace in addition to the indirect effect that is revealed through their interactions with trade integrations. The findings reveal that trade promotes peace in Africa, while wide income inequality and a large poverty gap increase the likelihood of conflict. The interaction of poverty and inequality with trade integration shows that while the poverty level does not improve the effect of trade on peace, inequality reduces the impact of trade on peace. The study concludes that poverty and inequality play significant roles in the trade–peace nexus in Africa. Policy recommendations are discussed.

Institutional counterinsurgency frameworks in the Lake Chad Basin: the case of the Multinational Joint Task Force against Boko Haram

ABSTRACT The Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) is engaged in active combat operations against Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin, but the latter remains very resilient and continues to launch lethal attacks. Yet, scholarship has failed to examine the institutional circumstances that account for the lack of success by the MNJTF. This article explores the influence of the counterinsurgency frameworks of the Organization of African Unity (OAU)/African Union (AU), Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS), and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) on the operations of the MNJTF. It takes a critical look at how the MNJTF’s states’ affiliation to separate sub-regional blocs influences military and intelligence cooperation among them. The article argues that the AU, ECOWAS, and ECCAS institutional counterinsurgency frameworks severely limit military and intelligence collaboration among its member nations, therefore impeding the MNJTF’s operations.

Why is it Necessary to Protect Migrants’ Status within Member Countries of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS)? Assessing the Stakes and Relevance of Ensuring a Protective Environment for Migrants

The protection of migrant right is a principle of international humanitarian law, ratified by most states, including the states of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), where, the movement of persons is thought to be free and has increased significantly. Although the legal aspect of migrant status and protection has been emphasized, the benefit such protection brings to the host state has been underestimated. The purpose of this article is to fill this gap by identifying and explaining not only the legal environment in which migrants live and operate within ECCAS but also, the benefits achieved by states when they embrace migrants and engage in their protection. The movement of persons within members of the ECCAS is not only a manifestation of the legal will of states of the region to protect migrant status, but also, such movements come with developmental benefits for member states. This article partly seeks to explore the advantages that Cameroon, Chad and Gabon acquire as member states of the ECCAS region when protecting foreigners in accordance with their local legislation and dispositions. Apart from the global symbolic benefits that these countries acquire as members of the international community, they are also thought to achieve real time benefits of national and regional significance when they embrace migrants from neighboring states and ensure their status is protected.

Does ecological footprint in ECCAS and ECOWAS converge? Empirical evidence from a panel unit root test with sharp and smooth breaks.

The costs due to climate change have been increasing day by day. In addition to the risk of losing our planet's natural assets due to the increasing destructiveness of climate-related natural disasters and extreme climate events, we are also faced with grave economic risks. For this reason, researchers have recently focused on environmental issues. Nevertheless, they generally have investigated developed countries and ignored developing and least developed countries such as African countries. The United Nations (2015) report highlights that African countries should be specially investigated. Hence, the paper analyzes whether the ecological footprint in the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) converges for the period from 1961 to 2017. We employ Bahmani-Oskooee et al.'s (2014) panel unit root test with sharp and smooth breaks. The empirical findings demonstrate that the ecological footprint is stationary in ECCAS and ECOWAS. Stated in other words, the ecological footprint in these countries converges. Therefore, policymakers could implement similar policies to reduce the ecological footprint in these countries. This policy framework paves the way for an effective sustainable development.

Comparative Analysis of the Interlinks between Globalization, Governance and Development in African Economic Communities

This paper examines the complex causal relationship between globalization, governance and development in African countries using a comparative approach. The sample comprises 51 countries in five groups over the period 1996–2018. The cointegration analysis shows that there is a long-run relationship between globalization, governance and human development in Africa as a whole sample. However, at regional level, such a relationship does not exist in the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) bloc. In the long run, globalization and governance affect positively human development in all samples. The findings indicate also that there was unidirectional causality from globalization and governance to development at the continental level. At the regional level, there is unidirectional causality from globalization to development in East African Community (EAC) and Southern African Development Community (SADC). In these regions, there is also a bidirectional causality between governance and development. In the ECCAS, the causality runs from governance to development and from development to globalization in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The results support no evidence of causality between the variables in North Africa (Arab Maghreb Union, AMU). Finally, the overall globalization index does not Granger-cause governance. The main implication of our study is that improving governance and development is a very challenging issue, and the impact of globalization should not be neglected.

Export Diversification in Economic Communities of Central African Countries: The Role of Infrastructure

Conscious of the low infrastructure development in Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), governments have invested important financial resources aimed at increasing the global stock of infrastructure, which indexes have raised from 11.13 in 2000 to 16.65 in 2018. In the same period, the average export concentration index slightly decreased from 4.92 in 2000 to 4.90 in 2014. Given the disproportionate improvement of infrastructure and export diversification, the study objective is to examine the effects of infrastructure on export diversification in ECCAS over the 2000–2016 period. Overall export diversification, and export diversification at extensive and intensive margins, are used as indicators. The fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and the dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) estimators are used for semi-parametric instrumental variable estimates that correct for serial correlation and endogeneity problems. The empirical results indicate that electricity and mobile phone infrastructure positively contribute to the overall and the export diversification along intensive margin, while transport infrastructure and internet negatively contribute to export diversification. The policy implications are that the stock of infrastructure should be increased quantitatively and qualitatively. The spatial distribution of infrastructure must depend on their capacity to produce a variety of tradable goods and services. The export diversification policies in ECCAS will prioritize infrastructure and the development of new export categories. Investment in infrastructure may be accompanied by trade and investment liberalization and by financial development.

Microbiology laboratories involved in disease and antimicrobial resistance surveillance: Strengths and challenges of the central African states.

Laboratory systems have been largely neglected on the margins of health systems in Africa. However, since the 2000s, many African countries have benefited from massive investments to strengthen laboratory capacities through projects fighting priority diseases (HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria). This review examined the laboratory capacities of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). Online research using specific terms was carried out. Studies published between 2000 and 2021 on the role of the laboratory in disease and antimicrobial resistance surveillance in the 11 ECCAS countries were considered. The number of human and animal health laboratories meeting international standards was very low in the sub-region. There were only seven International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 15189-accredited human health laboratories, with five in Cameroon and two in Rwanda. There were five high biosafety level (BSL) laboratories (one BSL3 laboratory each in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo, and one BSL4 laboratory in Gabon) and three ISO 17025-accredited laboratories in the ECCAS sub-region. Only six countries currently have whole-genome sequencing devices, which is insufficient for a sub-region as large and populous as ECCAS. Yet, a plethora of pathogens, particularly haemorrhagic viruses, are endemic in these countries. The need for laboratory capacity strengthening following a One Health approach is imperative. Since emerging and re-emerging zoonotic infectious diseases are projected to triple in frequency over the next 50 years and given the inextricable link between human and animal health, actors in the two health sectors must collaborate to preserve world health.

Taking Stock of African Union’s Sanctions against Unconstitutional Change of Government

This article examines the African Union (AU) sanctions against unconstitutional change of government. It reviews the legal background to this phenomenon and finds that unconstitutional changes of government remain recurrent and widespread across the continent. However, the AU has at its disposal a variety of sanctions, ranging from politico-diplomatic sanctions to targeted as well economic sanctions. Furthermore, perpetrators of unconstitutional change of government can be prosecuted at the domestic, regional and continental levels. But sanctions do not suffice to restore democratic order despite their punitive character. In fact, the AU also keeps diplomatic contacts and provides support to the establishment of transition governments, power sharing deals, and the organization of new elections. This fosters the rise of constitutionalism in times of crises which precedes the establishment of new democratic political orders. If this can be considered as a success in itself, the paper contends that in most of the cases, the AU and even Regional Economic Communities (RECS)/Regional Mechanisms (RMs) fail to restore to power overthrown governments. Rather, de facto authorities succeed to retain their positions after legitimizing their governments through presumed democratic elections. In addition, member states and some RECs, such as the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) in the situation in CAR in 2003, undermine the AU policy of sanctions. Be it as it may, the study concludes that the AU legal framework still has some loopholes in that a number of situations are not covered by it, such as infringing the principles of democratic government through fraudulent or delayed elections, and popular uprising. Therefore, it suggests that the better way to deal with unconstitutional changes of government is prevention. This requires a universal African adherence to common values and principles of democratic governance, including the ratification of relevant AU treaties and their implementation at the domestic level.

Explaining the Absence of a Regional Hegemon in the Central African Sub-region

The end of the Cold War saw a shift in power dynamics globally, changing the security dynamics of many regions globally including those in Africa. With the security void left by these great powers in Africa, regional hegemons have played significant roles in promoting regional peace and stability. Regional hegemons have greatly helped to sustain peace and stability in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Southern African Development Community (SADC), but this has not been the case in the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). This paper seeks reasons why no hegemon (dominant state) exists in the ECCAS region. The study analyses the material resource capacities of regional members and argues that a multiplicity of regional groupings, internal political instability, economic challenges and the neo-colonial hand of France accounts for the absence of a hegemon in the region.

TOTIC: PORTUGUESE PRE- COLONIAL AND COLONIAL DIPLOMATIC AGENTS OF TERRITORIAL EXPLORATION AND EXPLOITATION OF SAO - TOME AND PRINCIPE ISLANDS OF THE GULF OF GUINEA IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN 1485-1975

The present article brings out typologies of pre-colonial and colonial great figures that strongly coordinated, moderated and put in radical human forces of European exploration, exploitation and colonisation activities in the overseas colonies in Sub-Saharan Africa with examples drawn from the following important lucrative region known as the Gulf of Guinea within the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). The two countries used as our case studies include Sao-Tome and Principe from 1485 to 1975 (490 years) with 210 official agents remarkably during the pre-colonial and colonial periods. Considering the fact that most history books at times mentioned only few colonial administrators of the Continent, we therefore deemed it necessary to carry out this research on the various portfolios of specific foreign actors in full beginning from pre-colonial to end of colonial exploitations. The pre-colonial era brings out some of the foreign agents who in one way or the other prepared the ground work for deeper colonial partition, expropriation, expansion, exploitation and exaggerations of colonial activities as the best means to compensate themselves from the natural providence of the Black Continent in terms of natural and human resources well accessible in to the Atlantic Ocean. The work is divided into two parts using a chronological approach as indicated on the various tables and it brings out the total number of all prominent pre-colonial and colonial agents of the two countries. The scrutiny of specialized documents based on the pre-colonial and colonial Africa actually inspired us in the writing of this paper which can open new avenues to future researchers to find out in detail which of the Portuguese agent did what and when during their tenure of offices characterized with changing portfolios and revision of radical exploitative colonial policies colonialism.

São Tomé and Príncipe: More than the Land of Cocoa and Coffee

The Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, a small and remote island state, located in the Gulf of Guinea, has long offered little geopolitical and geo-economic interest. This situation is however gradually changing. In fact, since 2016, interest in the country has begun to grow, after the country resumed diplomatic relations with People’s Republic of China (hereafter China) and recognized the “one-China policy”. While the island state and Cabo Verde have followed different development paths in the post-colonial era, both share common features and both have the potential to perform important geopolitical regional roles in the context of the Belt and Road initiative (BRI). This paper discusses São Tomé and Príncipe’s regional engagement in the Gulf of Guinea (GG), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP), and in multi-level cooperation in light of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-Speaking Countries (FM) as well as bilateral cooperation. We argue that São Tomé and Príncipe is of geopolitical value to China and that the island state will serve Chinese interests in extending the BRI in the Gulf of Guinea. The microstate of São Tomé and Príncipe has the potential to transform itself to function as the “Qatar of the Gulf of Guinea”, and contribute to regional stability by providing regional services for shipping, banking, finance, high-quality education, tourism and as an engaged partner. This paper presents a methodological theoretical-inductive and constructivist perspective, combining qualitative, quantitative and non-participant observation.

What Have We Learnt of Joint Ventures in the Internationalization Process of Chinese Multinationals (MNCs)? Evidence from Central Africa

The purpose of this article is to analyze the specific role of joint ventures and other strategic alliances in Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) carried out by Chinese Multinationals Corporations in Central Africa. After exploring the extent to which the use of Sino‑Western joint ventures has helped Chinese firms to improve their technical and managerial skills both in domestic and foreign markets, the focus shifts to Central African countries members of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). The result is that joint ventures have become a major vehicle for Chinese multinationals firms to channel FDI, thus supporting the hypothesis that in the region under study this strategy allows them to guarantee the supply of raw materials (oil and mining products: copper, cobalt, gold, diamond,..), as part of a “package deals” linking FDI, Chinese Aid and Trade, also known as “Angolan model”; to conquer foreign markets (for technology and manufactured goods “Made in China”) and; to a lesser extent, to acquire strategic assets (brands, technological innovation, managerial skills).The commitment of Chinese stateowned MNCs through the “package deals” appears to be the keystone of stability and sustainability of Chinese FDI in Central Africa and in the continent In conclusion, the expectation is that the flow of Chinese FDI to Central Africa, should contribute to the process of sustainable development in recipient countries, provided that adequate political and economic governance is guaranteed. A pre‑requisite is to achieve institutional change, from a rent‑seeking to a developmental behavior at the state level, the result being an enhanced capacity to promote engineering potential, through the strengthening of human capital, and to negotiate transfer of technology and know‑how, with emerging countries partners, especially BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa)

EBOLA OUTBREAKS AND INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS: CASE STUDIES OF CENTRAL AND WEST AFRICA REGIONS

Ebola outbreaks in Africa have occurred mostly in the Central and West Africa regions that are politically identified as the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS), respectively. In the ECOWAS region, people and goods are allowed to travel freely across national borders of all the 15 member countries, but in the ECCAS region such regional travel across the national borders of its 10 member countries is limited. In this paper, we use parameterized mathematical models of Ebola to investigate the effects of free international travel, and the timing of border closings, on the high number of Ebola infection cases and deaths of the recent 2014–2016 Ebola outbreaks in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone (ECOWAS); as compared to previous and current outbreaks in Democratic Republic of Congo (ECCAS, 1976–2018). Simulations of our single-patch Ebola model without movement of humans across international borders are shown to capture the recorded numbers of Ebola infections and deaths in the ECCAS region, and simulations of our 3-patch model with interpatch movements capture that of the ECOWAS region. We obtain that international travel restrictions and timing of border closings can play important roles in mitigating against the spread of future fatal infectious disease outbreaks.

Operational and procedural integrity of elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Malpractice has affected the integrity of elections in the DRC in its three recent democratic electoral cycles: 2006, 2011, and 2018, particularly the last cycle. However, even though national and international media indicate that the degree of threats to electoral integrity is more critical in the DRC than the rest of Africa, the problems in the DRC are similar to those encountered in the rest of the continent. Moreover, in terms of election integrity the DRC may be better rated than many other African countries. This is particularly true of francophone Africa, as well as the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) to which the DRC belongs. There are many good lessons learned from recent elections in the DRC which could inspire electoral authorities elsewhere in Africa and thus contribute to improving electoral integrity on the continent.

Cycle Synchronization and Economic Convergence in ECCAS Zone

This article is part of the analysis of business cycles and the convergence of integrated economies. In contrast to work on the convergence of business cycles in a monetary union, we study the synchronization of business cycles within the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), characterized by heterogeneity monetary. Thus, we first extract cycles from GDP using the Baxter and King (1999) filter; then we date the cycles using the Bry and Boschan (BB, 1971) algorithm, and finally we measure cyclical co-movements using the Harding and Pagan (2006) concordance index. Furthermore, sigma-convergence is used to measure the degree of closeness over time of the identified economies, on the one hand, and beta-convergence to measure their adjustment process over time with respect to a reference value, on the other hand. The results obtained attest to the asynchronous nature of business cycles in the ECCAS zone over the period from 1990 to 2018. Thus, a weak trend towards convergence, both nominal (inflation, basic budget balance, public debt ratio) and real (GDP/capita and GNI/capita) has been observed since 2001.

INTRA-REGIONAL TRADE FACILITATION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN ECCAS AND ECOWAS

Abstract. Since the advent of the Abuja Treaty, Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) recorded poor intra-regional trade performance while Economic Community of West African States (ECWAS) performed better. The objective of this paper is to comparatively analyse the impact of trade facilitation measures on intra-regional trade between those two Communities, focusing on the role of Information and Communication Technology and custom environment indicators. Using data from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Geodist of Centre d’Etudes Prospectives et d’Informations Internationales and World Bank, our augmented gravity model results showed that internet has a positive and significant impact on the intra-ECCAS trade and no impact on intra-ECOWAS trade. Mobile phone has a positive and significant impact on the intra-regional trade in both zones. The number of days for export has a negative and significant impact on intra-regional trade in both zones, while the result of the number of document is ambiguous. The impact of the increase in these two indicators reduced trade more in ECCAS than in ECOWAS. Keywords. Trade facilitation, ICT, ECCAS, ECOWAS, Augmented gravity model. JEL. C23, H54, O24, R58.

Trade Creation and Trade Diversion Effects in the Economic Community of Central African States

AbstractThis paper analyzes trade creation and trade diversion effects in the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) between 2007 and 2016 using the Gravity Model. The results show that variables like GDP, population, bilateral distance, political stability and corruption are crucial for the determination of bilateral trade flow. More importantly, the study finds that there is neither trade creation nor trade diversion in the ECCAS region. Thus, the FTA in ECCAS did not lead either to reinforce intra‐trade or to emphasize trade with non‐member countries. Yet, the Economic Community of Central African States (CEMAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the East African Community (EAC) have been trade creating during the aforementioned period. Therefore, the paper recommends policy makers to promote more regional integration within ECCAS notably through the construction of intra‐zone communication means and the effective establishment of the free movement of people and goods within the region.