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ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) was founded in 1975 in order to consolidate West Africa’s trade channels, SADC (Southern African Development Community) formalised in 1992 in order to stabilise Southern Africa’s post-apartheid economic landscape, and COMESA (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa) evolved from the 1981 Preferential Trade Area into a full common market in the year 1994. The Abuja Treaty of 1991 then systematised these blocs as the formal building blocks of the African Economic Community, to create a phased roadmap toward monetary, economic, and political union.
This historical trajectory is reflective of a pragmatic truth: African countries recognised quite early that achieving economies of scale, mobilising infrastructure finance, and strengthening bargaining power in international markets were impossible with isolated national economies. So, RECs were therefore designed not as symbolic organisations but rather as hard-edged institutional instruments that are capable of reducing barriers, coordinating regulatory regimes, and supporting region-wide industrial development.
In 2025, RECs are still indispensable because they anchor the operational architecture of continental integration. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), although continental in scope, depends on REC-level implementation:rules-of-origin verification, customs harmonisation, transport corridor efficiency, and cross-border standards enforcement largely occur through REC systems.
RECs are also responsible for reducing regional transaction costs. SADC’s Trade Protocol has allowed tariff elimination on about 85% of intra-SADC goods. The East African Community (EAC), with its customs union and one-stop border posts, has cut transit times significantly. For example, the time to move goods from Mombasa to Kigali has dropped from around 21 days 10 years ago to about 6–7 days today. COMESA’s competition regulations, with ECOWAS’s regional energy protocols, and IGAD’s cross-border mobility frameworks show that RECs are increasingly regulatory, they are not just political.
Global fragmentation in 2024–25, supply chain volatility, tariff spikes, and geopolitical realignment , has also further upped the strategic value of RECs. Acting in solidarity allows African regions to negotiate better trade terms, coordinate industrial policy, and pool capital for large-scale energy, transport, and digital infrastructure that no single state can finance on its own.
Even though Africa’s intra-regional trade still lags behind other regions, RECs have pushed gradual but meaningful progress. Intra-African trade reached approximately US$190–200 billion in 2023, which represented about 15–16% of the continent’s total trade, drastically lower than Europe’s 60–70% but actually really improving. The EAC is the most integrated trade bloc, with intra-regional exports regularly accounting for about more than 20% of its trade.
REC-driven corridor projects have shifted the economic landscape of the continent. The North–South Corridor (SADC–COMESA), the Abidjan–Lagos Corridor (ECOWAS), and the LAPSSET Corridor (IGAD) have scored billions in investment, decreased transport bottlenecks, and facilitated much stronger regional value chains in agriculture, manufacturing, and services. Financial integration has also had emerging success: ECOWAS’s cross-border payments system and the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), created to reduce dollar dependency, reflect a deeper turn toward monetary cooperation.
REC accomplishments are significant but they remain uneven. Their most consistent achievements are in trade facilitation, freedom of movement (ECOWAS remains the continental leader), joint energy planning, and facilitated responses to health and security crises. Institutional reforms like the EAC’s judicial mechanisms and COMESA’s Competition Commission have set precedents for supranational rule-making.
Structural limits persist. Overlapping memberships fuel conflicting obligations; political instability in member states disrupt continuity and development; many RECs are heavily dependent on donor funding; and tariff schedules or non-tariff measures remain misaligned. Most importantly, integration often advances on paper faster than it does in practice: customs delays, poor infrastructure, underdeveloped manufacturing bases, and inconsistent enforcements continue to alter the benefits of membership.
For beyond 2025, the challenge is not just conceptual but it is also operational. RECs must streamline rules of origin, accelerate border modernisation, strengthen financial integration, align industrial policies, and rationalise membership overlaps. If these reforms materialise, RECs will without a doubt remain Africa’s most effective vehicles for building competitive regional markets, strengthening resilience to global shocks, and positioning the continent for meaningful participation in global value chains.
Written By:
*Dr Iqbal Survé
