REGIONALISM AND AFRICA’S FUTURE: THE IMPERATIVE OF UNITY

Authors: Aemro Tenaw Birhan & *Nsoh Christopher

ABSTRACT

Africa has no choice but to integrate into the global economic and financial systems to grow sustainably and reduce extreme poverty. The challenges faced by a continent with numerous tiny national markets and landlocked states are seen as rational reasons for regional integration. As a result, African countries have signed numerous regional integration agreements, many overlapping significantly with their members. However, African regionalism has not made significant progress, and African disunity is one of its greatest challenges. Since the inception of Pan-Africanism, much has been said about African unity. Various scholars explain that Pan-Africanism is a movement, an ideology, and a geopolitical project that liberates and unites African people and the African diaspora worldwide. Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere are two of the most famous ideologues of African unity. They shared the desire and ideal that the strength of Africa would come from a ‘United States of Africa’. At the Ghana Conference in 1960, Nkrumah said that Africa could and must be united, but it was not easy, and came up against numerous obstacles. Therefore, all the concerned bodies on the continent need to sit down and plan for the future, knowing that the only way out of the crisis lies in realizing true African unity. This paper examined the impact of African unity on the effectiveness of regionalism and a better future for the continent.

Keywords: Regionalism, Regional Integration, African Unity, Africa

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