Innovation and Regional Integration in Africa: Exploring Theory and Praxis for Socio-Economic Development

The search for a viable path to socio-economic development has underpinned the various efforts geared towards regional integration in Africa. Indeed, since the early 1960s through to the dawn of the twenty first century, political and bureaucratic elites in Africa such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Nnamdi Azikwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Adebayo Adedeji of Nigeria, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, among others have identified and championed the imperative of regional approach to restructuring the political economy of Africa (see Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2013; Adedeji 2012; Nkrumah 1963). The logic of their arguments stem from the weak capacity of the postcolonial state in Africa and their location in the global political economy, that is disproportionately designed against them. In order to realise the ambition of a united and integrated Africa, various programmes and strategies have been designed over the past four decades, both at the regional and continental levels. Starting from the formation of the Economic Community of West African States in 1975, through the East Africa Community of 1977 to the Southern African Development Community in 1992, many regional economic organisations have been formed on the continent to facilitate closer interactions and foster higher volumes of trade and investment among African countries. At the continental level, the Lagos Plan of Action and the Final Act of Lagos of 1980 had at its core, socio-economic development through self-reliance, industrialisation and regional integration (Mkandawire 2016; Adedeji 2012).