Long-term Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Would Regional Integration Help?

The economic difficulties that have plagued sub-Saharan African countries are broadly manifested by the general decline or stagnation in their average GDP growth rates (both absolute and per capita) as well as by sharp declines in their export growth coupled with marked losses in the region’s share of world trade, particularly during the 1980s (World Bank, 1989c). In terms of both policy and action, the predominant response to these difficulties has taken the form of the adoption, by the large majority of SSA countries, of structural adjustment programmes, with the encouragement and active support of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In their basic orientation, these programmes have generally emphasised the development of outward-looking trade regimes to be brought about through unilateral trade liberalisation. In addition, the programmes have been designed for and have focused upon individual countries. Hence, they have generally ignored existing regional integration schemes among various sets of SSA countries, including the extent to which particular trade, exchange rate and other macroeconomic policies articulated for implementation in the context of specific country SAPs are consistent with (or contradict) regional integration obligations previously entered into by such countries.