What if africa

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If you wonder why Africa suffers from a chronic shortage of trade and investment, then look no further than this behaviour. These policies are all less than a year old, but they come on the back of an almost uncountable number of other African anti-investment, antitrade policies.

Consider the old trope of Zimbabwe, which moved swiftly from breadbasket to basket case, with nary a glance from the rest of the continent or from the Sadc. SA still refuses to enforce the terms of the Sadc agreement with Zimbabwe when it breaches the agreement or when Zanu-PF steals elections.

As we try to create an African free trade area we should not expect the whole of Africa to behave substantially differently to its constituent parts, yet that seems to be exactly the expectation. There is no evidence that the Sadc agreement has worked well for any of the 16 member states, yet we feel we can miraculously raise investment and improve trade between all of Africa.

None of the regional economic clusters the Sadc, Economic Community of West African States , East African Community, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, and so on is functioning well, but the assumption seems to be that it will all be OK when we supersize this up to continent level. We are so busy talking up the agreement that we seem to have stopped all analysis of what is required to make it work.

The AfCFTA matters, but like a neglectful parent who tells everyone how their children are the most important thing in the world while locking them in a car parked in the sun, there is no effort to make the agreement work.

We seem to be having a conversation with the world about how great Africa will be, while doing all we can to ensure that outcome is never achieved. This is of course not new behaviour, but it does remain as self-destructive as it has always has been. Look at what is happening in Africa right now. This is happening in a region of incredible instability think about having Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia as neighbours when just a short while ago Ethiopia, with its more than million population, was one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa.

The one country on the continent never colonised by a European power — though Italy tried and failed twice — now imploding under the weight of its own, very local, chaos. And for the past year, while the conflict bubbled up, the rest of Africa stood by and watched. Only recently, as other countries in the region realise this could spill over into their backyards, have we seen any action.

There is no trade or investment without the primacy of the rule of law, let alone war. Ask anyone who invested in Ethiopia two years ago. Europe moved from being one of the most violent continents in the world to one of the most peaceful by dealing with this issue.

It used trade and cross investment to help keep the peace. Not always perfectly think the Balkans , but certainly substantially. The French are not about to invade the UK over fishing rights, a war that would have been quite possible just a few decades ago, and for less provocation.

But the EU did not arrive here overnight. What if, rather than maintaining short- to medium-term nationalist stances — which ultimately aggravate inflationary pressures — all African nations completely opened up their borders, instead?

What if each of these African nations specialised in the areas they have competitive advantages in and engaged in intra-African trade for other necessities? And what if each African currency were partly convertible across the continent or, at the very least, there existed a platform to facilitate African-currency-based payments and, thus, trade across the continent?

Whilst there is often a temptation for government — particularly in developing nations — to seek revenue growth by imposing tariffs, it is important to keep sight of the bigger, long-term picture. Get your free PDF by completing the following form.

This is a critical juncture for Africa to create a trade buffer for itself, and enact reforms that make its national borders more fluid, reducing much of the costs that have historically come from doing business on the continent.

One of the main barriers to intra-African trade is the absence of enabling infrastructures. Less talked about, however, is the inhibitive impact of physical and non-physical borders. African countries remain closed off to one another.

As recently as , each of the 54 African countries imposed a visa or non visa requirement on each other — a restriction with broad economic consequences. We can and should begin to imagine a different Africa — Africa as a country. One that allows for the freer flow of goods and services across its nation states, enabling cheaper access to inputs, raw materials, credit and, of course, people. With our population set to double in the next few decades, the African people are our greatest resource.

Symbiotic immigration policies between African countries — bolstered by improved transportation infrastructures — will be one of the greatest intergenerational enablers of the search for prosperity across the continent. Loosening migration restrictions across African nations also has the potential to revolutionise business habits within the continent. Why should it be cheaper to travel across continents than within it? More recently, Ghana, Rwanda and Kenya have begun to reap the benefits of more fluid borders, lessening migration restrictions on other African Union nation states.

Little wonder, then, that these nations are also some of the fastest growing on the continent. Between and , Ghana alone received more foreign direct investment than all eight West African Economic and Monetary Union member-states combined — despite these member states sharing a common currency.

As such, it is clear that our future is dependent on more revolutionary thinking about the free movement of Africans across Africa as a central policy area for integration.