Browsing by Subject "international relations"

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    Open Access
    For better or for worse: the impact of EPAs on Africa's regional integration
    (2022) Moleli, Moretlo; Akokpari, John
    Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in Africa are often plagued with disorientation and sub-par trade relations. It is well-established that extra-continental trade partnerships between Africa and the West have resulted in the delaying of industrialisation and the subsequent growth in intra-continental and intra-regional trade. This study aims to determine whether the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), engineered by the European Union (EU) between Africa and the EU have been beneficial to Africa's quest for regional economic integration. This was done through qualitative research. The theoretical perspective of Neofunctionalism is used in order to explore how scholars perceive regional integration. This is accompanied by some conceptual lenses stemming from the umbrella of New Regionalism theory, particular these are: Open Regionalism, The WIDER Approach, Regionalism from Below (New Regionalisms), as well as the External Guarantors Model. The study showed that the trade and economic agreements the EU established with Africa have been asymmetrical and have left Africa as a producer of raw materials. Thus, while the EPAs may produce some positive outcomes for Africa, the costs far outweigh the benefits. The EPAs have the potential to negatively affect Africa's quest to establish a thriving African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). In this regard, the EPAs are detrimental to, rather than enhancing Africa's regional integration efforts. Africa's regional economic communities (RECs) are critical to the success of the AfCFTA. Future trade agreements between Africa and the EU should therefore be crafted in ways that enhance Africa's regionalism.
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    Open Access
    The rise, fall, and return of development planning in Zambia
    (2020) Musiker, Greg; Seekings, Jeremy
    This dissertation presents a case study of the Zambian government's decision to reintroduce planning in 2002, after having abandoned it a decade prior. African countries, and most developing countries, share similar experiences in development planning - something Chimhowu, Hulme, and Munro refer to as the 'rise, fall, and return of planning'. The authors refer to the most recent period in the history of development planning - which became evident in most emerging countries in the late-2000s or 2010s - as the rise of the 'new' development planning. On a broad level, the catalyst for the reintroduction of planning in Zambia was an aid harmonisation process that saw multilateral and bilateral agencies attempt to streamline aid inflows into recipient countries, reduce the associated administrative costs for local officials, and generally improve aid efficacy. More specifically, the case study finds that a particular confluence of economic ideas and political interests left the government of Levy Mwanawasa favourably disposed to the reintroduction of planning. In this sense, the reintroduction of development planning formed part of Mwanawasa's attempts to shore up his legitimacy among the electorate and to build a political coalition to withstand a powerful faction within his Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) led by former president Frederick Chiluba. This paper finds that Zambia's Fifth National Development Plan (FNDP) 2006-2010 - the first development plan to be implemented since planning was abandoned in 1991 - was heavily influenced by the Poverty Reduction and Strategy Paper (PRSP) that preceded it. The PRSP was completed as a condition of the multilateral debt relief programme in which Zambia was participating at the time. Significantly, the FNDP did not represent a return to the developmentalism that characterised the post-independence era of development planning. Rather, the FNDP represented a continuation of the 'neoliberal populism' introduced with the PRSP. In practice, this resulted in failed attempts to alleviate some of the costs of adjustment - such as poverty and unemployment - through increased social sector spending. In short, the rise of the 'new' development planning in Zambia was not accompanied by a corresponding return of any sort of 'new' developmentalism.