Abstract:
Regional integration has significant potential for Africa, a vast continent with more than 1.2 billion people. However regional integration is posed to reassuring strong and equitable economic growth through markets, reducing violence, and improving trade liberalisation. These might combat challenges a continent faces with numerous tiny national markets and landlocked countries. Regional integration plays huge a role across different sectors. As a result, African governments have signed a relatively large number of agreements for regional integration, many of which have considerable overlap in their membership. Among the agreements is the Economic Commission for Africa that backs the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Economic Community for the Central African States (ECCAS), Southern Africa Community for Development (SADC) and eventually the Arab Maghreb Union as three regional integration initiatives (AMU). The rationale behind regional integration is an assumption to have an impact on economic growth by improving the economy's competitiveness, increasing industrialization, and offering better employment possibilities that reduce poverty in the region. Finally, for regional integration to be a success among African countries divisions need to be overcome to reduce restrictions of movement by people, investment, goods, services, and ideas through the regional integration area. These divisions have hampered economic progress, particularly in developing nations.
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