The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)

This chapter examines one of the most consequential RECs, in one of the ‘areas of great concern’ for Africa and the world (Horn of Africa): IGAD. Despite having the least substantive administrative structures (four organs), IGAD has been instrumental in bringing about peace agreements, peacekeeping missions and the successful split of South Sudan from Sudan. IGAD also hosts one of the only other countries to successfully ‘secede’: Eritrea, from Ethiopia, in 1993. IGAD’s humble beginnings are addressed, including the international partnerships, particularly with the UN and its agencies such as FAO, which saw its expansion, specialization and transition into a REC. With IGAD in mind, the chapter highlights one of the most prescient events that questions whether RECs are really about economic integration: both Sudan and Somalia’s primary agricultural exports are livestock. An increase in interstate trade between them, or throughout the region, is exceedingly difficult, considering that Kenya and Ethiopia are also major exporters of livestock and beef products, while Kenya and Ethiopia are both major coffee exporters. The chapter also highlights IGAD’s evolution, from the Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, illustrating some of the general processes of REC evolution and transition. It discusses IGAD regression data and finds little evidence that governance and economic development have been significantly affected by REC membership. However, with landmark successes, e.g., the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) or Naivasha Accords that led to South Sudan’s independence, the support of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia, followed by the IGADSOM and AMISOM (later authorized by the UN), IGAD has done more as a REC whose modest foundational goal was to address environmental and humanitarian challenges (drought and hunger) in the Horn region, than almost any other REC in Africa.