Regional Economic Integration and West Africa's Agricultural Export Trade: Challenges and Options

Since the establishment of the EEC in the late 1950s, the wave of Economic Integration has been intense. Alongside has been the emerging globalisation given impetus to by the Bretton Woods institutions and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). As integration entails some measure of protectionism, it limits market access and share in world trade with grave implications for the agricultural export trade of H 'est African sub- region. Thus, debate has ensued on how to reconcile the existence of various regional trading blocks with globalisation. This paper has two major objectives; (a) examining the compatibility of the concept of economic integration with the trade liberalisation goal of the WTO and (b) highlighting any challenge(s) this may pose to the outward commodity trade of the sub-region. The study shows that the use of common external tariffs and other concessions extended to members within a trading block are restrictive and, therefore, negate the principle of free trade. Within the regional context, however, economic integration plays a major role in promoting trade and capital flows across borders. Thus, it could be said to be a building block 'to achieving the global objective. The major challenge faced by the economies of W est African states is that of competitiveness both in produce pricing and quality, and even in their investment environment. To achieve this competitiveness, problems such as declining market share, export of raw commodities, weaknesses in marketing and financial sector support, the use of banned agro-chemicals and environmental problems must first be addressed. To this end, the current efforts at deregulation of their economies and return to democratic, open and transparent governance must be sustained. On agricultural sector-specific level, regional processing plants and commodity exchanges should be set up to add value to produce and enhance marketing channel efficiency. Other recommendations given in the paper include; proper use of only acceptable agro-chemicals and a well coordinated plan to tackle the menace of environmental problems. The challenge is no doubt great but with the enormous agricultural potentials in the sub-region and the right macro-economic environment, commodity trade can be the engine of growth in the economies of West Africa.