African Regional Integration and Globalization in Africa: Challenges and Prospects

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that Africa's integration efforts have thus far failed to bear satisfactory fruit. While other regions have successfully used their integration mechanisms to improve their economic welfare, Africa lags behind with respect to GDP growth, per capita income, capital inflows, and general living standards. The roots of many of the current struggles faced by Africans were placed in their continent’s difficult past. The lasting effects of slavery, unequal trade, and colonialism have impeded the advancement of government, education, socio-economic structures, and technology. Decades after the continent's independence movements, many African states are in disadvantaged positions within the global marketplace, or absent from it altogether. This paper interrogate the challenges of globalization in Africa and the role played by African Union in enhancing socio-economic and political integration in the continent. A secondary source of data collection was adopted in the course of data collections while dependency theory was utilized as framework of analysis. Results obtained from the findings showed that African States lack basic infrastructural technology, faced with migration and brain drain problems, political will among others. These common problems with basic infrastructure largely contribute to the region being so unappealing to corporate investment. And that African Union has no alternative means to the realization of Africa dreams with little mechanisms to transform the African states. The study therefore recommends among others that African must develop social capital, especially by investing in the education and health sectors. Such an attitude would then create a mindset for self-assessment and appraisal to see how the weakness can be conquered.