One of the promising venues of research related to BRICS is the application of international best practices among the leading regional arrangements and multilateral organizations in rendering the bloc’s operation more effective. One such idea that we advanced recently was the creation of a BRICS Troika along the lines of how it works in the G20 as well as in a number of other global and regional frameworks. We now turn our focus to the approaches and practices employed by the African Union – a regional bloc that has made notable advances in recent years, becoming in 2023 a full-fledged member of the G20. We aim to explore in particular the approach of the African Union to coordinating the efforts of economic integration across a number of Africa’s regional economic communities. In our view, the AU’s unique experience in this sphere could serve as a guide for the BRICS in devising their strategies associated with the “integration of integrations” of the regional blocs of the Global South.
Indeed, in all of the Global South there is no region quite like Africa in terms of the scale of the continental integration efforts. In fact, Africa may be considered as a unique and the most significant platform for the “integration of integrations” in the world economy, with the coordination of integration efforts across multiple regional blocs and regional development institutions. The African Union as the coordinator of these regional efforts recognizes 8 Regional Economic Communities (RECs):
• Arab Maghreb Union (UMA)
• Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)
• Community of Sahel–Saharan States (CEN–SAD)
• East African Community (EAC)
• Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS)
• Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
• Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)
• Southern African Development Community (SADC)
According to the official website of the African Union, “the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) are regional groupings of African states and are the pillars of the AU… The purpose of the RECs is to facilitate regional economic integration between members of the individual regions and through the wider African Economic Community (AEC), which was established under the Abuja Treaty (1991). This Treaty, which has been in operation since 1994, ultimately seeks to create an African Common Market using the RECs as building blocks”[1].
The approach of the African Union is to bring together the RECs to explore ways in which a common integration effort could be undertaken by all of the main regional arrangements in the African continent. For these purposes an AU-RECs-ECA-AfDB Coordination Committee was established – within this framework the Africa Union Commission (AUC) holds Joint Expert Coordination meetings with the participation of the AU, RECs, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), African Development Bank (AFDB), New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF). These meetings take place twice per year, with the Expert Coordination meeting providing “recommendations for the Chief Executives of the AU, RECs, UNECA, AfDB and other strategic institutions to discuss the regional dimensions of the Ten-Year Implementation Plan of Agenda 2063, Flagship projects, roles and capacities, among other important issues”[2].
In emulating Africa’s experience, the BRICS could opt for greater institutionalization and create a Secretariat that would perform the coordinating role with respect to the regional integration blocs, in which BRICS economies are members. The possible list of such regional integration blocs could include BIMSTEC, the Eurasian Economic Union, AfCFTA/AU, Mercosur, ASEAN/ASEAN+China FTA, GCC (before the BRICS core expansion of 2023-2024 the platform for BRICS+ regional integration arrangements was referred to as BEAMS/BEAMS+)[3]. The inclusion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) into such a platform while possible, would be fraught with duplication in membership (most notably with the EAEU) and the need for more time to advance the bloc’s economic integration agenda. All in all, such a BRICS+ platform for regional integration arrangements of the Global South would feature 6-7 arrangements, i.e. less than in the case of the African Union’s 8 RECs.
The BRICS could also replicate the AU’s mechanism of the Coordination Committee that holds discussions at the technical and expert levels every year – this would provide more scope for economic cooperation and coordination among the regional institutions of the Global South. Such a Coordination Committee framework for BRICS+ regional arrangements should include the New Development Bank (NDB) and the BRICS CRA as well as possibly UN development agencies. If the decision on the formation of a BRICS Secretariat is not taken and the BRICS institutionalization remains low, the formation of a Coordination Committee mechanism could operate during the BRICS+ summit meetings as well as/or during other high-level economic policy meetings of BRICS+ members.
Most importantly, the BRICS need to adopt a roadmap for the economic cooperation of the BRICS+ regional integration blocs and in this respect the AU’s Minimum Integration Programme (MIP)[4] could serve as a guide. The Minimum Integration Programme includes a range of activities “on which the RECs and parties involved should agree upon to speed up and bring to a successful conclusion the process of regional and continental integration… [given the need] to agree on a continental framework for coordination, convergence and collaboration among the RECs to achieve the ultimate objective, namely, the integration of the continent and African Economic Community”[5]. While for BRICS there is no fixed-date objective of creating either an FTA or a unified economic community, there may be a need for greater coordination and synchronization of the economic cooperation among the main regional integration blocs of the Global South using AU’s significant experience in this area.
There could also be value in tracking the progress in economic integration within the BEAMS+ framework via developing composite indexes along the lines of the indicators produced by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa within the framework of the Africa Regional Integration Index Platform (ARIIP)[6]. The New Development Bank could also explore the experience of the AU in concluding agreements with global development institutions such as the World Bank in supporting regional economic integration in Africa[7] – with the rise in NDB membership and the creation of NDB’s regional centers there could be scope for the NDB to develop financing facilities to support regional economic integration not only in Africa, but also in other parts of the Global South, including in South America and Southeast Asia.
The broadening of BRICS membership to include Ethiopia and Egypt has arguably further strengthened BRICS-AU ties, with Ethiopia’s capital hosting the headquarters of the AU and Africa receiving significantly more representation within the expanded BRICS core. The link between the two blocs could be further strengthened via BRICS replicating the AU’s mechanism of “integration of integrations” with respect to the main integration blocs of BRICS+, in which core BRICS economies are members. And while the progress attained by the AU in the sphere of coordinating Africa’s regional arrangements is far from uniform, the experience accumulated in Africa in this sphere offers a credible path for the BRICS+ framework to develop in the direction of bringing the main regional arrangements of the Global South closer together.
[1] https://au.int/en/ea/ric
[2] https://au.int/ea/ric/cc
[3] https://brics-plus-analytics.org/beams-of-the-sunrise-a-look-at-brics-5-year-cycles/
[4] https://au.int/en/ea/ric/mip
[5] https://au.int/en/ea/ric/mip
[6] https://arii.uneca.org/en-US
[7] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2024/02/22/the-african-union-commission-and-world-bank-seal-a-new-grant-agreement-to-foster-regional-integration
Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics
Image by the African Union via https://au.int/en/about/symbols