The economic costs of African unity

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 11 July 2007

Those who support the immediate formation of a union government for the entire African continent argue that their position is premised on the view that political unity is a prerequisite for economic developlemnt – that there cannot be any economic development if political unity is not forged.

Those arguing in favour of this view may well be labelled Nkrumahists, for it was the former Ghanaian leader who famously said: “Seek ye first political wisdom, and all else shall follow”.

On the other hand, there are those arguing that Africa must firstly strengthen its regional institutions, such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Delivering a speech at a Ghanaian university after he was honoured with a doctorate, President Thabo Mbeki said those arguing for the immediate formation of a United States of Africa are failing to realise that you cannot start building with a roof – that the key to Africa’s political unity is in the viability of its regional institutions.

A variety of political arguments have been exhausted, but very few have calculated the monetary costs of merging African states under one union government to enable faster cross-border trade.

In 2002, when South Africa’s population was still standing at around 43.6million citizens, there were, for example, nine African states the combination of whose populations was slightly above a half of South Africa’s population; and the combination of their economies could not even account to a quarter of South Africa’s economy.

These countries are Burundi, Comoros, Gambia, Lesotho, Mauritius, Rwanda, Togo, Seychelles and Swaziland.

The combination of the populations of Gambia (01, 455 842) Comoros (614, 382) and Mauritius (01, 200 206) was slightly higher than the population of the South African city Johannesburg (03 000 000).

In 2002, South Africa’s GDP was worth about US$255 155, which is 836 times more than the GDP of the West African country of Guinea Bissau. If the country experienced an annual growth rate of say 06% in its GDP, it would take it 139 years to be where South Africa was in 2002.

Some countries in Africa are so poor that a single rich US$ billionaire can run them using his own money.

Sources:

(1) Wikipedia; List of African countries by population density.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_population_density

(2) Wikipedia; List of African countries by GDP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_GDP