Support to Regional Integration
Building capacity for promoting regional integration in Africa has always been a priority as part of ACBF mandate. The Foundation has been implementing its interventions to enhance regional integration through support and collaboration with major RECs, the African Union Commission and other regional or continental institutions.
Many capacity building interventions has been successfully developed and implemented throughout the Continent. There are ongoing interventions including direct institutional support to REC’s Secretariat as well as to projects/programs that are designed to facilitate the regional integration and trade. Given its experiences and success in supporting national policy formulation process, ACBF support to RECs has focused on establishing and promoting policy design, implementation and monitoring function through establishment of economic policy units or function with major RECs. In that regard, the Foundation is supporting such units within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), The Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD), and East African Community (EAC) and more recently in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). Other support to RECs includes strengthening human and institutional capacity of Communauté Economique et Monétaire de l’Afrique Centrale (CEMAC), Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and ECOWAS.
Support to regional integration has been expanded thanked to the longstanding partnership with the African Union Commission, with funding provided to the Policy Analysis Support Unit (PASU) Project and to the AU CAP project
Other interventions in support to regional integration include human and institutional capacity strengthening of:
- NEPAD Secretariat
- East African Legislative Assembly
- SADC-Parliamentary Forum
- Pan African Parliament
- East African Business Council
In addition to grants provided to REC’s Secretariat and to the AUC and other sub regional or continental organizations, ACBF conducted and published a number of studies and capacity needs assessments. These are:
- Two capacity needs assessment studies published in 2015 and in 2016
- One (1) Africa Capacity Report focused on regional integration
- Three documents on capacity needs assessment for the implementation of Agenda 2063, capacity development plan and critical technical skills required for the execution of the 10 year implementation plan of Agenda 2063.
