This timely Handbook comprehensively explores the complex relationships between trade and economic performance in developing countries, illustrating that it is not trade per se that is important but the context, at the firm, country and regional level, in which trade occurs.
Informal cross-border trade (ICBT) represents a prominent phenomenon in Africa. Several studies suggest that for certain products and countries, the value of informal trade may meet or even exceed the value of formal trade. This paper provides a review of existing efforts to measure informal trade. We list 18 initiatives aimed at measuring ICBT in Africa. The paper also summarizes discussions conducted with many stakeholders in Africa between December 2016 and May 2018 regarding the measurement, the determinants, and the implications of ICBT. The methodologies used to measure ICBT in Africa differ widely, but they do confirm that informal trade in Africa is both sizeable and volatile. Both evidence on the determinants of ICBT and discussions with stakeholders suggest that policies should aim to reduce the existing costs associated with formal trade and provide positive incentives for traders and producers to move into the formal economy in order to avoid the loss of economic potential stemming from informal trade.
The 2020 Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor, the third in this series of flagship reports, presents an overview of trade in agriculture products in Africa and highlights the main impediments that affect intra- and extra-African trade. This year’s report includes chapters focusing on intra-Africa trade integration for agricultural products, including the role of nontariff measures, and on the competitiveness of African value chains that are crucial for food security (cereals, sugar, vegetable oils). The importance and measurement of informal cross-border trade for agricultural products is also examined. The final chapter looks at regional integration experiences in Southern Africa, with a focus on the Southern Africa Development Community. The report offers policy recommendations for improving agricultural exports performance, especially in the context of the unprecedented uncertainty the world is facing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zimbabwe has witnessed the rapid expansion of informal cross-border trading (ICBT) with neighbouring countries over the past two decades. Beginning in the mid-1990s when the country embarked on its Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP), a large number of people were forced into informal employment through worsening economic conditions and the decline in formal sector jobs.
This book examines how the existence of overlapping regional institutions has presented a daunting challenge to the workings of various Regional Economic Communities (RECs) on the African continent. The majority of the African countries are members of overlapping and, sometimes, contradictory RECs. For instance, in East Africa, while Kenya and Uganda are both members of EAC and COMESA, Tanzania, which is also a member of the EAC, left COMESA in 2001 to join SADC. In West Africa, while all former French colonies belong to ECOWAS, they simultaneously keep membership of UEMOA, an organization which is not recognized by the African Union (AU). Such multiple and confusing memberships create unnecessary duplication and dims the light on what ought to be priority. Various chapters in this book have therefore sought to identify and proffer solutions to related challenges confronting the workings of the RECs in different sub-regions of the African continent. The discourses range from security to the stock exchange, identity integration, development framework, labour movement and cross-border relations. The pattern adopted in the book involves devolution of related discussions from the general to the specific; that is, from the continental level to sub-regional case studies.
This report presents the results of a SAMP survey of informal entrepreneurs connected to cross-border trade between Johannesburg and Maputou during 2014. The study sought to enhance the evidence base on the links between migration and informal entrepreneur-ship in Southern African cities and to examine the implications for municipal, national and regional policy.
Introduction: An Overview of African Regionalism, Security and Development / Ernest Toochi Aniche, Ikenna Mike Alumona and Inocent Mayo -- Conceptualising and Historicising African Regionalism in the Context of Pan-Africanism / Samuel Osagie Odobo -- Beyond Neo-Functionalism: Africa in Search of a New Theory of Regional Integration / Ernest Toochi Aniche -- Foreign Policy Initiatives and Pan-African Regionalism / Victor Chidubem Iwuoha -- Migration and Regional Integration in Africa: Some Critical Disjunctures / -- Inocent Moyo -- Towards a Single African Economic Space: Informal Cross-border trade and the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Free Trade Area / Christopher Changwe Nshimbi -- Regional Integration and Trade in the Central and West Africa: ECCAS and ECOWAS in Comparative Perspective / Emeka C. Iloh and Emmanuel C. Ojukwu -- European Union and African Union Internal Coordination and Crisis Management: Some Critical Reflections / Emmanuel de Groof -- African and Latin American Regionalism: Perspectives for Interregionalism and South-South Cooperation / Gladys Lechini and Carla Morasso -- Security Challenges and African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) / -- Jude A. Momodu and Saheed Babajide Owonikoko -- Nationalism, Separatism, Conflicts and Pan-African Integration / Onyekachi Ernest Nnabuihe and Kayode George -- Insurgency, Terrorism, Militancy, and African Regionalism / Francis Chigozie Chilaka -- Political Succession and Regional Integration in Africa / Ikenna Mike Alumona -- The African Union and Its Expanding Role in Peace Keeping and Conflict Resolution in the Post-Cold War Era / Nicholas Idris Erameh -- Developmental Regionalism and Democratisation in Africa / Ashindorbe Kelvin & Kingsley Chigozie Udegbunam -- Developmental Regionalism Strategies and Gender in Africa: A Study of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) / Omokiniovo Harriet Efanodor-Obeten -- Multilateralism and Regional Trade Agreements: The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) / Stephen Nnaemeka Azom -- Globalisation and Modern African Regionalism / Victor Chibuike Obikaeze.
Contemporary Regional Development in Africa interrogates well-known concerns in the areas of regionalism and economic integration in contemporary Africa, while offering an added uniqueness by highlighting the capacity imperatives of the issues, and proposing critical policy guideposts. The volume juxtaposes a set of ’dynamic’ entanglements - new and micro-regionalism, informal cross-border trade, intra-African and African FDI plus cross-border investments, infrastructure development, science and technology, regional value-chains, conflict management and regional security - with fluid interpretations of regional development. The chapters provide snapshots of the several emerging and complex regionalisms and highlight a set of relevant and often overlapping analyses - drawing on authors’ nuanced and granular understanding of the African landscape. The varied, yet interlinked, nature of issues covered in this study make the book valuable and attractive to academics, researchers, policymakers and development practitioners.
Africa's Informal Workers is a vigorous examination of the informalization and casualization of work, which is changing livelihoods in Africa and beyond. Gathering cases from nine countries and cities across sub-Saharan Africa, and from a range of sectors, this volume goes beyond the usual focus on household ‘coping strategies’ and individual agency, addressing the growing number of collective organizations through which informal workers make themselves visible and articulate their demands and interests. The emerging picture is that of a highly diverse landscape of organized actors, providing grounds for tension but also opportunities for alliance. The collection examines attempts at organizing across the formal-informal work spheres, and explores the novel trend of transnational organizing by informal workers. Part of the ground-breaking Africa Now series, Africa’s Informal Workers is a timely exploration of deep, ongoing economic, political and social transformations.
Pan-African banks are expanding rapidly across the continent, creating cross-border networks, and having a systemic presence in the banking sectors of many Sub-Saharan African countries. These banking groups are fostering financial development and economic integration, stimulating competition and efficiency, introducing product innovation and modern management and information systems, and bringing higher skills and expertise to host countries. At the same time, the rise of pan-African banks presents new challenges for regulators and supervisors. As networks expand, new channels for transmission of macro-financial risks and spillovers across home and host countries may emerge. To ensure that the gains from cross border banking are sustained and avoid raising financial stability risks, enhanced cross-border cooperation on regulatory and supervisory oversight is needed, in particular to support effective supervision on a consolidated basis. This paper takes stock of the development of pan-African banking groups; identifies regulatory, supervisory and resolution gaps; and suggests how the IMF can help the authorities address the related challenges.