MY POINT OF VIEW

This is a continuation of the last posting on the need to rebalance the African Union on a more economic plattform as opposed to its current cracked political foundation.

-->As years passed by, it was realised the fundamentals of continental empowerment must be based on an economic foundation, and in spite the fact that some economic components such as the Priority Program for Economic Recovery (PPER) and the Special Emergency Fund for Drought and Famine in Africa (SEFDFA) where introduced into its framework in the 80s, its foundation was political and cracked. The politically cracked foundation is for sure the core reason why the Organisation never achieved its objectives until its demise in 2002, when it was transformed into the now known African Union (AU).

Taking a look back at the economic history of Europe for example, one will agree without doubts that the European Union is strong today not because it emerged as a political organization, but rather because the corner stones of its foundation are all economically carved.  

Amongst the four core reasons behind the creation of the EU, the two principal ones were the realisation by its founding fathers that European nations individually were no longer large enough to hold their own in-world market, and second the desire to scrap off economic protectionism, an issue which is still widely practiced across Africa today.

It may be astonishing to know that most African nations today have more intense economic protectionism practices against other fellow African states than with countries off the continent.

Under the current apparatus, gross economic growth and development across the continent can not be achieved without fundamental transformations which require the total rebalancing of institutions such as the African Union on a more solid economic platform.

Efforts to partition the continent into regional trading blocs have not been very successful both economically and even politically. In some extremes cases the blocs have rather been counter productive especially when it comes to international negotiations. The difficulties in this respect are enormous given that, some countries have membership to more than one of such regional trading blocs. Meaning when the two blocs take different directions during trade negotiations for example, it becomes a problem for a country with membership to both blocs.