African Economic Community

The African Economic Community (AEC) is an organization of African Union states establishing grounds for mutual economic development among the majority of African states. The stated goals of the organization include the creation of free trade areas, customs unions, a single market, a central bank, and a common currency (see African Monetary Union) thus establishing an economic and monetary union.

Goals

The AEC founded through the Abuja Treaty, signed in 1991 and entered into force in 1994 is envisioned to be created in six stages:

1. (completed in 1999) Creation of regional blocs in regions where such do not yet exist
2. (completed in 2007) Strengthening of intra-REC integration and inter-REC harmonisation
3. (completed in 2021) Establishing of a free trade area and customs union in each regional bloc
4. (to be completed in 2023) Establishing of a continent-wide customs union (and thus also a free trade area)
5. (to be completed in 2025) Establishing of a continent-wide African Common Market (ACM)
6. (to be completed in 2028) Establishing of a continent-wide economic and monetary union (and thus also a currency union) and Parliament

• End of all transition periods: 2034 at the latest

Stages progress

as of September 2007

• Stage 1: Completed, only Arab Maghreb Union members and Sahrawi Republic not participating. Somalia is participating, but no practical implementation yet.
• Stage 2: Steady progress, nothing factual to check.
• Stage 3:

	Regional blocs - pillars of the African Economic Community (AEC)
Activity	CEN-SAD	COMESA	EAC	ECCAS		ECOWAS			IGAD	SADC		UMA
				CEMAC	Common	UEMOA	WAMZ	Common		SACU	Common
Free Trade Area	stalled	progressing 1	fully in force	fully in force	proposed for 2007 ?	fully in force		proposed	stalled	fully in force	progressing 2	stalled
Customs Union	stalled	proposed for 2008	fully in force	fully in force	proposed for 2011 ?	fully in force		proposed for 2007	stalled	fully in force	proposed for 2010	stalled

¹ Members not yet participating: DR Congo (in talks to join), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Seychelles (in talks to join), Swaziland (on derogation until SACU gives permission for Swaziland to join the FTA), Uganda (to join very soon)[1]
² Members not yet participating: Angola, DR Congo, Seychelles [2]

• Stage 4: In March 2018, 49 African countries signed the African Continental Free Trade Agreement paving the way for a continent-wide free trade area. The continental free trade area became operational in July 2019, after 22 ratifications. As of 2021, 34 signatories have effectively become parties of the treaty.
• Stage 5: no progress yet
• Stage 6: no progress yet

Overall progress

File:Map of the African Union.svg

  Members of the AEC's parent, the African Union

		Activities
Regional bloc		Free Trade Area	Economic and monetary union			Free Travel		Political pact	Defence pact
			Customs Union	Single Market	Currency Union	Visa-free	Border-less
AEC		Partially In Force	proposed for 2023	proposed for 2023	proposed for 2028	proposed for 2023	proposed for 2023	proposed for 2028	proposed for 2028
CEN-SAD		proposed for 2010
COMESA		in force 1	proposed for 2008	?	proposed for 2018
EAC		in force	in force	proposed for 2015	proposed for 2024	proposed for 2018	?	proposed for 2023
ECCAS	CEMAC	in force	in force	?	in force
	Common	proposed for 2007 ?	proposed for 2011 ?	proposed	proposed	proposed	?		in force
ECOWAS	UEMOA	in force	in force	proposed	in force
	WAMZ			?	proposed for 2012
	Common	proposed 2	proposed for 2007	proposed	proposed	in force 1	proposed	proposed	in force
IGAD
SADC	SACU	in force	in force		de facto in force 1	?
	Common[3]Template:Dead link	proposed for 2008 3	proposed for 2010	proposed for 2015	proposed for 2016
UMA

¹ not all members participating yet
² telecommunications, transport and energy - proposed
³ sensitive goods to be covered from 2012

African Economic Community
Pillar regional blocs (REC)	Area (km²)	Population	GDP (PPP) ($US)		Member states
			(millions)	(per capita)
EAC	5,449,717	343,328,958	737,420	2,149	8
ECOWAS/CEDEAO	5,112,903	349,154,000	1,322,452	3,788	15
IGAD	5,233,604	294,197,387	225,049	1,197	7
AMU/UMA 4	6,046,441	106,919,526	1,299,173	12,628	5
ECCAS/CEEAC	6,667,421	218,261,591	175,928	1,451	11
SADC	9,882,959	394,845,175	737,392	3,152	15
COMESA	12,873,957	406,102,471	735,599	1,811	20
CEN-SAD 4	14,680,111				29
Total AEC	29,910,442	853,520,010	2,053,706	2,406	54
Other regional blocs	Area (km²)	Population	GDP (PPP) ($US)		Member states
			(millions)	(per capita)
WAMZ 1	1,602,991	264,456,910	1,551,516	5,867	6
SACU 1	2,693,418	51,055,878	541,433	10,605	5
CEMAC 2	3,020,142	34,970,529	85,136	2,435	6
UEMOA 1	3,505,375	80,865,222	101,640	1,257	8
UMA 2 4	5,782,140	84,185,073	491,276	5,836	5
GAFTA 3 4	5,876,960	1,662,596	6,355	3,822	5
AES	2,780,159	71,374,000	179,347		3
During 2004. Sources: The World Factbook 2005, IMF WEO Database.   Smallest value among the blocs compared.   Largest value among the blocs compared. 1: Economic bloc inside a pillar REC. 2: Proposed for pillar REC, but objecting participation. 3: Non-African members of GAFTA are excluded from figures. 4: The area 446,550 km2 used for Morocco excludes all disputed territories, while 710,850 km2 would include the Moroccan-claimed and partially-controlled parts of Western Sahara (claimed as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic by the Polisario Front). Morocco also claims Ceuta and Melilla, making up about 22.8 km2 (8.8 sq mi) more claimed territory.

Pillars

Currently there are multiple regional blocs in Africa, also known as Regional Economic Communities (RECs), many of which have overlapping memberships. The RECs consist primarily of trade blocs and, in some cases, some political and military cooperation. Most of these RECs form the "pillars" of AEC, many of which also have an overlap in some of their member states. Due to this high proportion of overlap it is likely that some states with several memberships will eventually drop out of one or more RECs. Several of these pillars also contain subgroups with tighter customs and/or monetary unions of their own:

These pillars and their corresponding subgroups are as follows:

Pillars	Subgroups
Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD)
Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)
East African Community (EAC)
Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS/CEEAC)	Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC)
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)	West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ)
Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)
Southern African Development Community (SADC)	Southern African Customs Union (SACU) Common Monetary Area (CMA)
Arab Maghreb Union (UMA)

Pillar membership

  member states; year of joining

  member states; year of joining; cooperation in the framework of the bloc stalled

  candidate states; year of application

CEN-SAD Founding states (1998): Joined later: 1999: 1999: 2000: 2000: 2000: 2001: 2001: 2001: 2001: 2001: 2002: 2002: 2004: 2004: 2004: 2005: 2005: 2007: 2007: 2008: 2008: 2008: 2009:

COMESA Founding states (1994): Template:DRC Joined later: 1999: 2001: 2005: 2018: 2018: Former members: 1994-1997: 1994-1997: 1994-2001: 1994-2004: 1994-2007:

EAC Founding states (2001): Joined later: 2007: 2007: 2016: Template:SSD 2022: Template:DRC ECOWAS Founding states (1975): UEMOA-94 UEMOA-94 UEMOA-94 WAMZ-00 WAMZ-00 WAMZ-00 UEMOA-97 WAMZ-10 UEMOA-94 UEMOA-94 WAMZ-00 UEMOA-94 WAMZ-00 UEMOA-94 Joined later: 1977: Former members: 1975-1999: Template:Smalldiv

ECCAS Founding states (1985): CEMAC-99 CEMAC-99 CEMAC-99 Template:Country data Congo CEMAC-99 Template:Country data DR Congo CEMAC-99 CEMAC-99 withdrawn 2007-2016 Joined later: 1999: CEMAC-99: CEMAC state from 1999

IGAD Founding states (1986): Joined later: 1993: 2011: Template:SSD UMA1 Founding states (1989):

SADC Founding states (1980): SACU-70 SACU-70 SACU-70 Joined later: 1990: SACU-90 1990: SACU-70 1995: 1997: Template:Country data DR Congo 1997: withdrawn 2004-2007 2005: Template:Smalldiv

¹ The UMA (Arab Maghreb Union) does not participate in the AEC so far, because of opposition by Morocco

Interlocking relationships

Template:Supranational African Bodies Venn diagrams illustrating interlocking relationship overlaps:

File:RECs of the AEC.svg REC pillars of the African Economic Community.   CEN-SAD   COMESA   EAC   ECCAS   ECOWAS   IGAD   SADC   UMA

File:Active RECs of the AEC.svg Active REC pillars of the African Economic Community.   COMESA   EAC   ECCAS   ECOWAS   SADC

Other blocs

File:Other trade blocks in Africa.svg

Other trade blocs in Africa not part of the African Economic Community.

  GAFTA

  CEPGL

  COI

  LGA

  MRU

Other African regional blocs, not participating in the AEC framework (many of them predating AEC) are:

• Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA) (an organization of most Middle Eastern states, including those outside Africa)
• Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (CEPGL)
• Indian Ocean Commission (COI)
• Liptako–Gourma Authority (LGA)
• Mano River Union (MRU)

Their membership is as follows:

GAFTA 1	CEPGL	COI	LGA	MRU
2005 membership: Joined later: 2009:	1976 membership: Template:Country data DR Congo	1984 membership:	1970 membership:	1973 membership: Joined later: 1980: 2008: Template:Country data Ivory Coast

¹ Only African GAFTA members are listed.
GAFTA and MRU are the only blocs not currently stalled.

African Free Trade Zone

The African Free Trade Zone (AFTZ) was announced on Wednesday October 22, 2008 by the heads of Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the East African Community (EAC).

In May 2012 the idea was extended to also include ECOWAS, ECCAS and AMU.

See also

• African Economic Outlook
• Economy of Africa
• Economy of the African Union
• CARICOM Single Market and Economy

Sources

• A single African currency in our time?
• African leaders agree to form single market
• African Union Official Website
• South African webpage on RECs
• Pan-African Perspective