Like others here, I have no expectation of pan-African unity, but I also don’t see much near-term hope for even loose regional federation. Let’s face it – as Nigeria demostrates, Africa has had trouble making a federal system work even within a single nation. Organizations likes ECOWAS have been around for years, but can we cite a single thing ECOWAS has accomplished, aside from providing employment to a few bureaucrats and producing handsomely bound documents?
I think Africa needs to focus on producing functional states first. Regional infrastructure is important, and it seems to me that the EU is doing the right thing by focusing on it, but I don’t see that implying any form of federation.
If we are talking about a Giant Pan African Parliament in Nairobi with powers like New Delhi or a German/Italian style merging of sates – not in the lifetime of anyone reading this.
OTHOH If we are thinking A.U.= some kind of semi-1980’s era E.U. I think maybe. It will never be all of Africa, even sub-Saharan. However I think is within the realm of possibility we could see - say 20 countries, sharing NAFTA like borders, and aiming for trade coordination and expansion of free market forces, as well as using a coordinated regional political response to regional problems, (like disasters, political instability, AIDS) I think it is possible, we aren’t that far from this in the political arena now – I think just more on the Economic side.
I say ‘possible’ but note that no one who matters is working towards it, no one who matters is really pushing for it, it isn’t going to happen unless a group of someones really try to make it happen. Many of the largest of these Countries are still trying to exert central coordination over their far flung regions – let alone coordination with/over other countries.
But something like I describe it isn’t impossible and could happen inside a few decades (because it does make some amount of sense and offers some benefits)
I plead ignorance as to the value of specific institutions. I am woefully uninformed about much of the political reality of Africa. The EU link I found specifically mentions the African Union and NEPAD as institutions to enociurage to develop and obliquely mentions “other” organizations as well. What are the relative strengths of the different organizations? In concept, yes, I would imagine that integration emergent out of working together, rather than top-down imposistion, is more likely to succeed.
The problem with ECOWAS and the African Union, and even to an extent the UN, is that so many of the participating countries are dictatorships. So in effect, an organization like ECOWAS finds itself representing not the people of its member countries and their interests, but rather the interests and prerogatives of dictators. Plus, as is usual with Africa governments, you get a certain amount of featherbedding, such that an ECOWAS post is often nothing more than a well-paid sinecure.
I’ll have to plead ignorance as well (plus I’m getting all my West African organizations confused). I thought ECOWAS deployed the peace keeping force to Sierra Leone, but I might be wrong.
Some of the ECOWAS members formed the West African Monetary Union, which apparently was doing reasonably well until Liberia erupted in civil war. I guess that’s the drawback of these regional organizations. You end up tying yourself to countries which can completely collapse at any given moment.