No need re-inventing the African integration wheel (1)

“The Accidental Ecowas & AU Citizen”:
No need re-inventing the African integration wheel (1)

By E.K.Bensah Jr
Two events have conspired to remind me about how far the African Union and ECOWAS still need to go on communicating their message about integration.

The first was the Ghana Economic Forum, which was organized and held by this Paper on 12 March, 2014 at Movenpick Ambassador Hotel. While there were very important points made about the necessity of agriculture remaining a “long-term solution to the country's economic challenges”, there was scant reference made to the efforts of the African Union and or/ECOWAS and the role they can—and do—play in helping foster agriculture to the heights it needs to go to ensure it is well-integrated into development plans of African countries. This is where a brief discussion of CAADP could have been held.

It will be recalled that in October 2013, I wrote a two-parter on the continental agricultural programme known as CAADP. Even in 2012, I had written a piece entitled 'The AU as a Project in 'Human Endeavour and Continental Cooperation'. The major objective of the piece was to communicate to the wider public the importance of the AU and its CAADP programme.

An explanation of the Pan-African/continental compact included the fact that CAADP was endorsed in Maputo in 2003. According to CAADP's website, CAADP's overall-goal is to 'eliminate hunger and reduce poverty through agriculture'. To achieve this, African governments have agreed to increase public investment in agriculture by a minimum of 10 per cent of their national budgets and 'to raise agricultural productivity by at least 6 per cent.' This is to be done through CAADP's strategic functions, regional and economic communities, national roundtables and four key Pillars.

I went on that: “Some of us would like to speculate that CAADP is a positive and concrete example of a Pan-African idea devolving to the national. That no less than 30 countries have already signed up is encouraging as it signals the importance that African policymakers clearly seem to have about agriculture. But there is a new development in this whole discourse, and it is about how a Pan-African idea/programme has devolved also to the regional.”

On the specific case of West Africa and its role in agriculture, and the reason why Togo was most likely chosen to host the regional agency on agriculture, I wrote : “Notwithstanding any clear communication by ECOWAS on why Togo was chosen to host the regional food agency, I can only speculate that given the fact that Togo already hosts the ECOWAS Project Preparation and Development Unittouted by ECOWAS as 'an agency of the organization with the mandate to prepare bankable infrastructure projects to facilitate private and public sector investments', as well as an agency [established in 2005] to identify 'bottlenecks in the implementation of the NEPAD Short Term Action Plan adopted by the Heads of State and Government of the African Union in June 2002' - it made sense that it would be optimal to have an agency that is seeking to implement the continental CAADP at the regional level (through ECOWAS's Common agricultural policy (ECOWAP) ) to be located very closely to the ECOWAS PPDU.”

In my second part, I explained “A lot of the time, we complain that ECOWAS and the AU, and such-like institutions are not working. True, much of the time, they do not work because implementation of proposed strategies takes a scandalously-long time to translate into results that can be seen. We may not have seen how over a decade so much has happened around Africa's agriculture, but the narrative is there for all to follow and read. September 2013 will go down the annals of agricultural history in West Africa as significant for the manner in which plans were followed almost to the letter.”

Rather frustrated, I concluded that “The opaqueness around the recruitment of those who will man and head the ECOWAS Food and Agricultural Agency notwithstanding, I believe ECOWAS Community citizens can pat themselves on the back for a job well-done by Africa's policy-makers. Let us break the myth of when we want to hide something from the Black Man, we put it in a book, and get to reading, discussing, and understanding the narrative of Africa's agricultural integration. CAADP is not going to go away until all 54 countries have signed onto it. So far, 30 countries have done so. There are plans for each of the seven other regional economic communities (RECS) establishing food and agricultural agencies for their respective regions. ECOWAS has led the way, but it must also lead the way in ensuring effective policy-implementation.”

Simply put: the absence of a regional and continental approach in the year that the African Union celebrates a decade of good news on agriculture was the biggest lacuna at the Ghana Economic Forum. I believe, going forward, any discussion about Africa's putative “rise” and growth will necessarily have to include a discussion of these two approaches—and Ghana must continue to remember this, and very quickly!

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In 2009, in his capacity as a “Do More Talk Less Ambassador” of the 42nd Generation—an NGO that promotes and discusses Pan-Africanism--Emmanuel gave a series of lectures on the role of ECOWAS and the AU in facilitating a Pan-African identity. Emmanuel owns "Critiquing Regionalism" (http://www.critiquing-regionalism.org). Established in 2004 as an initiative to respond to the dearth of knowledge on global regional integration initiatives worldwide, this non-profit blog features regional integration initiatives on MERCOSUR/EU/Africa/Asia and many others. You can reach him on [email protected] / Mobile: 0268.687.653.