New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and Africa's quest for regional economic integration: the case of Southern African Development Community (SADC)
- Authors: Chigombe, Courage
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: New Partnership for Africa's Development , Southern African Development Community , Sustainable development -- Africa, Southern , Africa, Southern -- Economic conditions , Africa -- Economic policy
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/2072 , vital:27604
- Description: Despite according high priority to regional economic integration and being clustered by regional economic schemes, Africa’s regional economic integration record is not inspiring. With the transformation of the OAU to the African Union (AU), the New Partnership for Africa`s Development (NEPAD) was adopted as the development program of the continent to drive the impetus of economic integration through trade. At the time NEPAD was adopted, regional integration schemes in Africa were facing problems of low intra-regional trade levels despite trade being identified as the engine of activity and economic growth for regional economic integration. The study was centered on Southern Africa with precise attention on SADC. Even though trade is accepted as a vital engine of economic growth and development, this is not the case with SADC. The study was looking at the contribution of NEPAD in intra-regional trade in Africa with special focus on SADC. This was prompted by the fact that regional integration is business as usual within the sub region while problems that have been confronting regional schemes are continuing unabated after the adoption of NEPAD. The study used the historical approach because it provides the study with an advantage of accessing existing literature with regards to what is really stalling intra-regional trade in SADC. The study findings noted that NEPAD has not fully addressed the problems of intra-regional trade within SADC and the continent at large. The study lastly concludes by giving a way forward for NEPAD to respond to the specific needs of SADC for the promotion of intra-regional and equitable trade.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Chigombe, Courage
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: New Partnership for Africa's Development , Southern African Development Community , Sustainable development -- Africa, Southern , Africa, Southern -- Economic conditions , Africa -- Economic policy
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/2072 , vital:27604
- Description: Despite according high priority to regional economic integration and being clustered by regional economic schemes, Africa’s regional economic integration record is not inspiring. With the transformation of the OAU to the African Union (AU), the New Partnership for Africa`s Development (NEPAD) was adopted as the development program of the continent to drive the impetus of economic integration through trade. At the time NEPAD was adopted, regional integration schemes in Africa were facing problems of low intra-regional trade levels despite trade being identified as the engine of activity and economic growth for regional economic integration. The study was centered on Southern Africa with precise attention on SADC. Even though trade is accepted as a vital engine of economic growth and development, this is not the case with SADC. The study was looking at the contribution of NEPAD in intra-regional trade in Africa with special focus on SADC. This was prompted by the fact that regional integration is business as usual within the sub region while problems that have been confronting regional schemes are continuing unabated after the adoption of NEPAD. The study used the historical approach because it provides the study with an advantage of accessing existing literature with regards to what is really stalling intra-regional trade in SADC. The study findings noted that NEPAD has not fully addressed the problems of intra-regional trade within SADC and the continent at large. The study lastly concludes by giving a way forward for NEPAD to respond to the specific needs of SADC for the promotion of intra-regional and equitable trade.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
The Rural poor, the private sector and markets: changing interactions in southern Africa
- University of the Western Cape, Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies
- Authors: University of the Western Cape, Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies
- Date: 2003-08
- Subjects: Economic development -- Africa, Southern , Africa, Southern -- Economic Policy , Poor -- Africa, Southern , Sustainable development -- Africa, Southern
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/74448 , vital:30303 , 1868085783
- Description: One of the central tenets of much current development thinking in southern Africa is that market-oriented strategies and private sector involvement must be the basis for future economic growth. This has underpinned structural adjustment and economic policy reform policies in the region over the last decade or more. It also underlies the argument for encouraging external foreign direct investment (FDI) as a motor for growth. However growing evidence suggests that such a strategy has not paid off. Economic growth rates have been disappointing, private, and particularly foreign, investment has been limited, and employment in the formal sector has fallen dramatically.1 Structural adjustment and market liberalisation have clearly not delivered the developmental benefits claimed of them, and people's livelihood opportunities have, ft seems, declined over the same period and their levels of vulnerability have increased. The increasing recognition that the standard neo-liberal prescriptions were not having the expected benefits, especially for poor people, has resulted in some rethinking about how best to redirect the benefits of globalisation and economic reform towards the poor, and how to offset some of the losses. Thus ‘pro-poor growth strategies’, ‘making markets work for the poor’ and ‘growth for redistribution' have become well-worn slogans. However, the practical and policy measures required, whereby the benefits of an engagement with a globalised economy, investment by the private sector and liberalisation privatisation measures can result in poverty reduction, remain vague.A number of issues arise. For the sceptics, questions are raised about the degree to which the turn to a 'pro-poor' markets approach is simply rhetorical gloss, added to the discredited neo-liberal paradigm, or actually a genuinely new policy perspective in its own right. It is important to differentiate between broad economic policy reform objectives (which, with some nuances, remain largely in the standard neo-liberal form) and sectoral policies which contain explicitly pro-poor elements. While retaining the argument that market liberalisation and external investment are key, such policies may include some strategic elements of state- directed intervention which boost the access of the poor to new markets and investment opportunities. It is this stance, where the state intervenes to improve access and for particular groups of people, redressing to some extent the imbalances caused by the lack of level playing fields of existing markets, which potentially sets a pro-poor perspective apart.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003-08
- Authors: University of the Western Cape, Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies
- Date: 2003-08
- Subjects: Economic development -- Africa, Southern , Africa, Southern -- Economic Policy , Poor -- Africa, Southern , Sustainable development -- Africa, Southern
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/74448 , vital:30303 , 1868085783
- Description: One of the central tenets of much current development thinking in southern Africa is that market-oriented strategies and private sector involvement must be the basis for future economic growth. This has underpinned structural adjustment and economic policy reform policies in the region over the last decade or more. It also underlies the argument for encouraging external foreign direct investment (FDI) as a motor for growth. However growing evidence suggests that such a strategy has not paid off. Economic growth rates have been disappointing, private, and particularly foreign, investment has been limited, and employment in the formal sector has fallen dramatically.1 Structural adjustment and market liberalisation have clearly not delivered the developmental benefits claimed of them, and people's livelihood opportunities have, ft seems, declined over the same period and their levels of vulnerability have increased. The increasing recognition that the standard neo-liberal prescriptions were not having the expected benefits, especially for poor people, has resulted in some rethinking about how best to redirect the benefits of globalisation and economic reform towards the poor, and how to offset some of the losses. Thus ‘pro-poor growth strategies’, ‘making markets work for the poor’ and ‘growth for redistribution' have become well-worn slogans. However, the practical and policy measures required, whereby the benefits of an engagement with a globalised economy, investment by the private sector and liberalisation privatisation measures can result in poverty reduction, remain vague.A number of issues arise. For the sceptics, questions are raised about the degree to which the turn to a 'pro-poor' markets approach is simply rhetorical gloss, added to the discredited neo-liberal paradigm, or actually a genuinely new policy perspective in its own right. It is important to differentiate between broad economic policy reform objectives (which, with some nuances, remain largely in the standard neo-liberal form) and sectoral policies which contain explicitly pro-poor elements. While retaining the argument that market liberalisation and external investment are key, such policies may include some strategic elements of state- directed intervention which boost the access of the poor to new markets and investment opportunities. It is this stance, where the state intervenes to improve access and for particular groups of people, redressing to some extent the imbalances caused by the lack of level playing fields of existing markets, which potentially sets a pro-poor perspective apart.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003-08
- «
- ‹
- 1
- ›
- »