Contemporary Regional Development in Africa interrogates well-known concerns in the areas of regionalism and economic integration in contemporary Africa, while offering an added uniqueness by highlighting the capacity imperatives of the issues, and proposing critical policy guideposts. The volume juxtaposes a set of ’dynamic’ entanglements - new and micro-regionalism, informal cross-border trade, intra-African and African FDI plus cross-border investments, infrastructure development, science and technology, regional value-chains, conflict management and regional security - with fluid interpretations of regional development. The chapters provide snapshots of the several emerging and complex regionalisms and highlight a set of relevant and often overlapping analyses - drawing on authors’ nuanced and granular understanding of the African landscape. The varied, yet interlinked, nature of issues covered in this study make the book valuable and attractive to academics, researchers, policymakers and development practitioners.

Regional development is a broad term but can be seen as a general effort to reduce regional disparities by supporting (employment and wealth-generating) economic activities in regions. In the past, regional development policy tended to try to achieve these objectives by means of large-scale infrastructure development and by attracting inward investment” (OECD, 2014).A territorial and regional approach to development is crucial in addressing regional challenges, regional economic competitiveness, and reducing socio-economic discrepancies. This book provides a forum to articulate and discuss Africa’s regional development issues in view of the rising opportunities within the African region. This volume contains 14 chapters and is organized in four sections: Introduction; Industry, Trade and Investment in Africa; Agricultural Services and the Water-energy-food Nexus in Africa; and Environmental and Cultural Dimensions to Africa’s Regional Development.

This book charts the history and contemporary landscape of African regionalism, investigating how regional cooperation can be used to help to tackle security and development challenges in Africa. Africa has a long tradition of regional cooperation, with the oldest trade and monetary integration schemes in the developing world, but its colonial period and partition of have caused lasting damage that still be seen in today’s African economies. Contemporary post-colonial African regionalism, deeply rooted in notions of pan-Africanism, has served as a means of collective self-reliance and economic transformation and development. This book starts with the history and theory behind African regionalism before discussing and comparing regional organisations such as the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD), Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the East African Community (EAC). Finally, the book considers how regional integration and cooperation can help to address security and development challenges. This ambitious and broad-ranging book will be a valuable resource for researchers working on African regionalism, security, African integration and development, and comparative regionalism. Policymakers should also consider it a useful guide to the background and contemporary landscape of African regionalism.

This book by a group of international scholars, both Arab and Western, was first published in 1985, and considers the state of contemporary North Africa and its position both in the Arab world and within wider international affairs. It examines the cultural and historical contexts which have shaped political and social conditions within the region. It also considers the nature of intra-regional conflict which has long been a feature of the North African political scene. The sociological impact of economic development within the region is treated at length, as are the changing positions of both the traditional elites and new groups such as women workers.

Development in Modern Africa: Past and Present Perspectives contributes to our understanding of Africa’s experiences with the development process. It does so by adopting a historical and contemporary analysis of this experience. The book is set within the context of critiques on development in Africa that have yielded two general categories of analysis: skepticism and pessimism. While not overlooking the shortcomings of development, the themes in the book express an optimistic view of Africa’s development experiences, highlighting elements that can be tapped into to enhance the condition of African populations and their states. By using case studies from precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial Africa, contributors to the volume demonstrate that human instincts to improve material, social and spiritual words are universal. They are not limited to the Western world, which the term and process of development are typically associated with. Before and after contact with the West, Africans have actively created institutions and values that they have actively employed to improve individual and community lives. This innovative spirit has motivated Africans to integrate or experiment with new values and structures, challenges, and solutions to human welfare that resulted from contact with colonialism and the postcolonial global community. The book will be of interest to academics in the fields of history, African studies, and regional studies.

This book argues that the development of capital goods manufacturing industries in four relatively large African economies will create regional development poles, from which industrialization will spread to the smaller African countries. In this book, Benaiah Yongo-Bure explains the need for capital goods industries in Africa and shows how manufacturing can transform economies. He outlines the roles of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Nigeria, and South Africa as potential regional development poles, showing how the existing economies, natural resources, and populations of these countries make them ideal candidates, while also considering possible challenges to industrialization. Finally, the author assesses what major infrastructural development is needed to link the countries and regions to increase the spread effects of economic growth. This book will be of interest to scholars and policy makers in economic development and regional development in Africa.