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Introduction
in a union with other nations, has delivered varying results for those actively engaged in
such relationships.
This paper will report on the research of the considerable literature addressing the
political and economic conundrum that continues to plague two distinct geographical and
under a specific regional integration agreement (RIA) is not the principal focus of this
commentary. Some individual nations derive more benefit than others under the plethora
of the world’s regional free trade agreements (FTAs), and considerable research exists
addressing this issue. The present paper, however, is focused upon an investigation into
Southern Africa’s poor performance under its RIAs and whether contemporary research
findings support parallels to similar current and projected outcomes in South Asia.
Because all global economies were affected by the world monetary crisis of 2008-
2009, this paper will primarily consider those findings of regional integration successes
or failures of these two subject regions subsequent to those events. This is not to say that
the foundational work of Haas and others will not be referenced for their historical
perspectives, as his reasons for studying the processes and outcomes of regional
integration remain as valid today as they did in 1970 when he suggested the possibility of
finding that “regional peace-keeping machinery is more effective than United Nations
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 3
procedures” in pursuit of conflict avoidance and resolution (Haas, 608). Haas managed
to penetrate abstractions and theories, and points those researchers who followed his
work toward predictions based upon past performance. He distinguishes between easily
regional systems in setting the stage for much of the quantitative research that ensued
over a period of forty years. Those distinctions need to be kept in mind throughout the
Haas articulated, in his 1970 work The Study of Regional Integration: Reflections
as a negative force where, among other factors, there is a perceived imbalance of power
or benefit among group members. The size of individual states within the group does not
predict success as long as the core rationale for affiliation remains viable, and the
addition of other associations within the primary integrated group has no predictive value
to the overall longterm success of the union. The best predictor of overall success are the
commitments to common market exchange and shared growth, supported not just in the
language of agreements, but in the conduct and actions called for in those agreements.
global financial crisis, the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Eight years
later, however, there has been a semblance of growth and stability slowly returning to
most national economies and industries. This by no means implies that things have
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 4
returned to pre-2007 levels, but with the exception of Southern Africa and South Asia,
there has been measurable global economic progress in terms of productivity and trade.
Because of the current global economic evolution, research prior to 2008 (Haas,
Lindberg, De Lombaerde, Van Langenhove, et al), while it pointed the way for more
contemporary analysis and articulated working definitions still au currant in the lexicon
used by more contemporary researchers, will not be the fulcrum upon which any
conclusions drawn here will rest. Post-2008 research efforts will be the primary sources
Definition of terms.
preliminary step prior to considerations of the literature and any subsequent discussion,
the following is offered in the interests of clarifying and simplifying what follows.
nations committing them to act in support of the protocols for increased trade,
FTA – Free trade agreement, wherein sovereign nations agree to eliminate specific
tariffs or other impediments to the exchange of goods and value between themselves,
in whole economic and political barriers to trade; members generally share geographic
Customs union – A trading bloc within a free trade area protected by common
The question we need to ask has no easy answer: Why is it that Southern Africa
and South Asia, two culturally and economically diverse and geographically distant parts
of the world, are not enjoying the benefits of regional integration experienced by other
regionally integrated nation-groups? With those answers in hand, those who are today
confronting the challenges of regional integration in South Asia may benefit from an
understanding of the ongoing impediments and frustrations with which their counterparts
in Southern Africa have been dealing for several decades. If there are indeed parallels to
be drawn by way of something akin to a cautionary tale, the sharper the focus upon them
the better.
despite their disparate resources, climates, and cultures—and their participation within
their integrated regional economic and trade associations is anticipated to reveal common
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 6
impediments. Highlighting those impediments and concomitant challenges may point the
way to resolution; each region may benefit by an examination of the struggles of the
other.
committed regional integration efforts has been ongoing for more than 40 years. The
same is true with regard to the study of regional integration phenomena in South Asia.
The challenge of critical selection of materials was overcome by narrowing the area of
research study to the period following the 2008 global financial crisis, which adversely
affected the economies of the world in general and those of both Southern Africa and
sourcing, earlier academic research efforts and writings nevertheless underlie any
research of the most recent two decades, must acknowledge those theoretical and
empirical studies from which that more contemporary research evolved. Landmark work
International Order (1996), Ernst Haas in his 1958 work The Challenges of Regionalism,
as well as the plentiful United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs
Working Papers (2005-2015) provide the underlying foundation for this research.
has been necessary to access a number of online academic library databases to review the
research conclusions of early thought leaders in the field. Google Scholar pointed in the
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 7
provided access to both digital academic archives and to JSTOR’s cloud-based library of
articles, books, and treatises, many of which served as research and reading reference
points.
research, it was determined that, while there exists substantial source material reporting
studies of the challenges and outcomes of efforts at regional integration dating back to the
mid-20th Century, some referencing the formation of the United Nations as a body
responsible for international economic and political policy, the contemporary challenges
currently facing the regions of interest to this study were best addressed through a review
of more recent academic publications. Constraining this research to the period 2008-
2015, while limiting the volume and authorship of material under consideration, provided
international academic databases and the ability to explore the early research papers of
considerable material, albeit much of it revolving around the same galaxy of conclusions
arrived at earlier. The published research, both prior to the 2008 international financial
crisis and post-2008, reveals little disagreement among scholars as to the sources of the
challenges facing successful regional integration in either South Asia or Southern Africa;
nor is there any debate regarding the persistent urgency faced by the nations of those
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 8
indicates the same problematic cultural, ethnic, economic, political, and security factors
impeding any progress toward regional integration; The findings of this paper, after an in-
depth consideration of prior studies, may ultimately echo the deductive reasoning reached
several preeminent established scholars in the field, and as the majority of those
researchers reference the studies of their academic peers in their writings, this paper was
written in complete confidence of both the validity of its sources’ findings and in the
decades, their conclusions—unique or not—stand on their own based upon the research
determined after a review of preceding research as well as contemporary data, and then
entered into the recorded annals of academic, political, and economic thinking. All such
works are duly and appropriately referenced within the text of this paper and in the
Having narrowed the focus of our interest in the efficacy and potential of efforts
at regional integration to two individual and distinct sub-continents (Southern Africa and
South Asia), the nature of the research literature provided an opportunity for clear
one of the two regions was focused upon, those findings were set aside while the
At the point where the review of the literature pertaining to both subject regions
contention among the various research findings were sought in reviewing the
amalgamated data and conclusions; few were found. Rather, points of commonality as to
the impediments to regional integration in both the subject regions were apparent. Where
and parallel issues, they are noted herein and point to this paper’s thesis even more
In examining the reasons why long-term efforts for regional integration among
distinct sovereign states remains a challenge for both Southern African and South Asia,
As early as 1970, Haas (606-646) spoke to the point that by then he had been
studying regional integration for more than a decade, referencing the period’s “blooming
in Europe of political efforts to build a united continent and to ‘integrate’ Western Europe
Reflections on the Joy and Anguish of Pretheorizing, Haas outlined the growing
several of which appear to have not been met by Southern African efforts some 40 years
later.
some specific detail the difficulties immediately arising upon the agreement by the
Southern African Development Community coalition in the face of South Africa’s then-
undefined political and social commitment to the regional organization. The paper,
among the SADC members, adding that South Africa had to that point in time
sovereign powers” to the SADC. Based upon prior and subsequent research into the
examples of Southern Africa’s inability to coalesce for a common benefit. She managed
to avoid making a specific recommendation, but the preponderance of the evidence cited
indicates a fundamental “line in the sand” requiring significant quid pro quo if Southern
In the 2011 Staff Working Paper Regional Integration in Africa, written under the
auspices of the World Trade Organization Economic Research and Statistics Division,
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 11
Africa’s multi-channel efforts at regional integration. The study considered the entire
Africa’s proclivity for economic structures of linear market integration involving free
trade areas, customs unions, a common market, with the ultimate objective of creating a
viable economic union. The problem of creating an effective Tripartite Free Trade Area
agreement history, one which has produced very little in the way of equitable benefits
Hartzenberg, while avoiding any pejorative assessments of the outlook for future
success at the regional level, pointed to the obvious internal conflicts among member
states who appear to give considerable lip service to community objectives while
and notes the difficulty of enforcing RIA terms: “Sanctions for the lack of
implementation or the application of sanctions if they do exist in Africa RIAs are notable
Hartzenberg gave only passing reference to the 40-plus year long evolution of
South African RIAs and their effectiveness, but briefly outlined the contemporary
affiliations and endeavors of the 26 member states of SADC, EAC, and COMESA who in
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 12
2008 agreed to establish a free trade area as the Tipartite FTA. The irony, as Hartzenberg
pointed out, is that “Africa’s integration record is marked by grand schemes, weak legal
serious commitment.”
takes a much more laudatory perspective in the Bertelsmann-Scott paper The Regional
Integration of Public Goods, published by the European Centre for Development Policy
Scott points to earlier successes in infrastructure progress pursuant to the efforts of the
asserts that the principle objective of the SADCC was to encourage “independence from
South Africa” once South Africa joined the coalition of states, and that the objectives of
the new SADC continue to evolve toward complete regional economic and trade
integration.
Scott proffers a series of underlying causes for the “mixed picture of missed
domination of South Africa as the driving financial and productive force in the region.
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 13
By way of counterbalance, the observation is made that other nations within the region
indicate “high-level political engagement” that nevertheless has little impact upon the
success of regional integration and continues to fragment overall efforts to the point of
stagnation.
Mills Soko’s somewhat more recent Notre Europe policy paper, The Political
of the forces behind the history and evolution of Southern Africa’s primary regional
integration entities, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the
Southern African Customs Union (SACU), which sets the foundation for his principal
thesis that South Africa’s economic power is both the cause for and the beneficiary of
academic research to support his notion that South Africa’s dominant position within
both the SADC and the SACU impose upon it serious responsibilities to its sister nations
intra-African trade, and the maintenance of international relationships that inure to the
benefit of all within the particular alliance. Soko goes to great lengths to examine the
pros and cons of expanding both groups, exploring the potentials for affiliation with other
regionally affiliated groups in Europe, the Pacific, and the Caribbean. Drawing stronger
conclusions than those of his research predecessors, Soko weighs the challenges facing
the manifold Southern African regional integration efforts and comes to the conclusion
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 14
that present and future roadblocks and impediments may prove just as frustrating as those
of the past.
The conclusions of the prevailing body of research into the efficacy of future
Southern African regional integration paradigms inevitably compare them to those of the
European Union, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Transatlantic Economic
Council, The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, and the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations. When held up to that mirror, Southern Africa’s attempts to
bring its member nations into a functional collaborative community with balanced
Supporting our findings that the challenges which Southern Africa has yet to
overcome are remarkably similar to those still faced by the nations of South Asia
(Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka) in their foundering efforts at
regional integration, the November 2014 Asian Economic Integration Monitor (AEIM)
intraregional share and intensity,” and that South Asia’s economic and trade ties with the
rest of Asia are in a state of decline. The analysis of this negative state of affairs
indicates that South Asia’s economic and cultural ties are stronger with East Africa than
with the countries within its own region, which remain “relatively isolated” from the rest
As is the case in Southern Africa, the AEIM report details South Asia’s critical
regional state members, making the prospects for both investment return and trade
detail comparing the growth of free trade agreements (FTAs) in which South Asia
participates (India is signatory to 37, 13 of which are currently in effect) to actual intra-
regional economic and trade activity. The conclusion drawn by the review of the data
presented is that in spite of its efforts to intensify trade with East and Southeast Asia,
South Asia continues to lag behind its neighboring regions in terms of internal regional
integration as well as in establishing viable trade links with Europe, North America, and
Latin America. These conclusions are data-focused and avoid any probing discussion of
the underlying political, ethnic, or cultural factors impacting the ability of South Asia to
economic integration in South Asia, the history and underlying objectives of the South
Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) are informative. The United
and Policy Research investigator Ramesh Chand, who points out in “International Trade,
Regional Integration and Food Security in South Asia” that while the region is home to
23% of the world’s population, it accounts for merely 3% of global production (GDP).
Both researchers examine the political factors frustrating economic growth under the
myriad regional integration agreements now in force, and ultimately pose similar
At the forefront of impediments these authors note are the deeply-rooted historic
ethnic, religious, military, and political differences shared by SAARC member nations.
They note that these conflicts continue to override regional economic and strategic
interests, rendering South Asia as the “least integrated region in the world.”
V.V. Desai, in his 2010 research for Asian Development Bank and reported in
The Political Economy of Regional Cooperation in South Asia, discusses the primary
source of South Asia’s failure to successfully integrate the economic interests of SAARC
power within the region. He also reports on SAARC’s failed attempts to accelerate
again pointing to “disharmony among member states” and lack of agreement about the
principal goals of the association. The list of problems hampering effective South Asia
The totality of the literature reporting upon the causes underlying the parallel
failures of both Southern Africa and South Asia to achieve regional integration is
In the latter part of the 20th Century, the forces of globalization created significant
band together in pursuit of their individual and collective sovereign and regional
economic interests. Those interests persist today and continue to drive activities that
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 17
were defined by research dating back to the 1971 political economics studies of Lindberg
and Scheingold in 1971 as falling within eight specific requisite functional paradigms:
economic growth.
The current literature provides scant metric or anecdotal evidence to support the
competing political agendas extant in countries outside the regions those policies
putatively serve—have done much in the way of creating sustained economic growth
among signatories to the RIAs extant in either Southern Africa or South Asia. This
reality has only been exacerbated by the global economic crises of the past decade, giving
rise to a reasonable suspicion that current efforts at regional integration in these two
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 18
between and among their putatively affiliated nations are doing more harm than good.
unified, cooperative entity continue to be meet with poor levels of integration pursuant to
fundamental resistance of those states to relax certain aspects of their historic, cultural,
and economic sovereignty. Those same difficulties of genuine integration are clear when
the primary objective is merely the regulation of business and commerce both
internationally and intra-nationally within the region. As a result, while the pressures
driving increased levels of regional integration continue to increase, the prospects for
the world—North America, Southeast Asia, Europe, the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands,
where successful cooperative trading blocks and regional integration agreements (RIAs)
provide for the reduction or elimination of trade barriers and increased GDP among
The regional and global impacts of this phenomenon of parallel systematic failure
where access to raw materials and trading routes have provided the resources and market
access required for industrial and economic development, have been the dominant forces
Since the turn of the century, however, the pendulum has swung in the direction
aggregate, those nations now account for 40% of global GDP, a shift strongly influenced
by significantly increased demand for raw materials, market access, and infrastructure
development.
But growth is never a constant upward curve; many of those developing countries
materials and energy commodity pricing and are consequently vulnerable to wide swings
in financial and political stability. When those markets are in turbulence, the effect on the
within a regional market, years of progress can be torn asunder with a single violation of
national security. Any political or military provocation between neighbors has the
potential to destroy decades of cooperative trade agreements and create chaos across
global markets.
continent can have residual—if not direct—consequences for those of other regions. This
perspective motivates a further understanding of the causes behind any particular failure
at regional integration. Such an understanding is vital to any movement away from the
The past four decades have seen intensified global proliferation of geographically-
economic, political, security, and social concerns. This process of regional integration,
individual and collective interests is rife with challenges, not the least of which is the
surrender on the part of participants of varying degrees of sovereignty over state affairs.
social, political, and cultural outcomes, the commitment of unique sovereign entities to
members. Where that commitment is sporadic and only the ancillary to self-interests,
difficulty ensues.
This difficulty is embodied in the ongoing struggle for the successful regional
integration of the nations of Southern Africa which, when considered in light of stated
objectives, appears to have been riding a slippery downward spiral heading steadfastly
toward the drain of failure. In spite of the successes of other geographically related
America, Europe, South America, and Southeast Asia, Southern Africa’s lack of
integrated cohesion over the long term appears to threaten future regional economic and
political progress.
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 21
Zimbabwe, occupies the southernmost one-third of the African continent, territory that is
among the world’s richest repositories of natural resources, enjoying a unique diversity of
varying ethnic cultures. In spite of those assets, a majority of Southern Africa’s countries
suffer economic conditions substantially below the global mean gross domestic product
powers which left behind somewhat fragmented geo-political constructs and conflicts,
remnants of which continue to undermine genuine regional unification. One of the facts
that to this day stands in the way of successful integration is the earlier proliferation of
assorted “plans” and organizations created in the wake of the sweeping political, social,
and economic upheaval that was the consequence of the elimination of a century’s
Organization of African Unity, the U.N.’s Economic Commission for Africa, the Abuja
Treaty, the Economic Commission for Africa, the Economic Community of West African
States, the Preferential Trade Area, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa,
Development Community…the list goes on—was created with the goal of supporting the
evolution of Southern Africa into an effective free trade region enjoying the mutual
benefits of a full economic union and common market. Such disparate associations, each
with narrow industry and tariff issues, have not substantially met their stated objectives.
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 22
The Southern African Customs Union (SACU), one of the more successful and long-
established customs unions in the world and ironically the product of fiat at the hands of
Colonial Britain, to this day contains provisions that remain to be implemented pursuant
to its independence from British influence in 1990. That’s nearly 30 years of “planning”
exposing the economy to price fluctuations frequently determined by forces outside their
marketplace and domestic policy purview. Without the proven ability to diversify its
This is not to say that the export of goods outside the region has not increased in
volume over recent years. World Trade Organization metrics demonstrate an average
growth rate of just over ten percent, but those numbers actually reflect a decline in
Southern Africa’s share of world trade during the same time period at approximately
three percent. This is in comparison to the share of world trade experienced by other
comparative metrics for the economic growth of Southern Africa on a global basis do not.
Commission for Africa, only 30 percent of exports are shipped to buyers on the African
continent, while 50 percent of goods are exported to Europe and the United States, with
exports to Asia and China remaining at 20 percent of output. Evidence of the failure of
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 23
percent of its consumables from sources outside the continent. In other words, less than
20 percent of current trade in Southern Africa occurs between its regional members.
above, those arrangements have failed to reach their objective of lubricating the gears of
The statistics, however, should be considered in light of the disparate nature of the
economic, financial, and industrial capacity of all members of the Southern Africa
regional community. Some of the nations within the region have little strength to greatly
nations, if possible, would increase volumes on a limited scale. This is not to say that
such efforts are not worth the results; any integration has an incrementally positive effect
nations has been, the economic, political, industrial, financial and military domination of
South Africa over its regional partners has created an imbalance of influence that
continues to limit progress. In spite of its own internal problems in managing a post-
apartheid economy and the difficulties of overcoming the residual effects of prior
routes, and infusion of Western capital to stimulate its economy—has done little to fulfill
the expectations of its neighbors in terms of economic and technological support. The
economy of South Africa remains insular and holds the purse strings of regional
investment and industrial development, while several of its neighbors’ economies depend
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 24
upon providing South Africa with the labor to support its mining industry. Regional
contradictory national political objectives and incompatible economic systems. When one
failure of intra-regional trade throughout Southern Africa does not seem so perplexing.
sole exception of South Africa—produce little in the way of finished goods and are
dependent upon the exploitation of raw materials and natural resources, often with
considering the extraordinary lengths these individual nations went to in order to rid
leadership and economic foresight now depend upon those historic colonial powers as
their primary export targets. Much of Southern Africa, then, continues to be the victim of
powers. The consequence of this is a propagation of the status quo, wherein an absence
manufacturing productivity inhibits trade within the region and defeats the objectives of
regional integration.
mining, but lack the technology to process the products of those endeavors for
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 25
distribution in the regional or global marketplace, they have little parity with those
South African Development Committee (SADC) member countries may embrace similar
objectives in economic and social integration across frontiers, but the stated goals of
and the acceptance of common shared sovereign values and an adjustment in particular
individual political values wherein the common good becomes the motivating norm; the
perceived notion of that norm continues to fluctuate among the countries of Southern
Africa.
the social, cultural, and ethnic challenges found within member states, including the
disease outbreaks, the suppression of AIDS, and the need for mutual acceptance of the
continue to occur with the passage of time and may presage future progress on other
fronts.
workforce educational levels below the level of competing global regions, as well as a
“work ethic” that can only be characterized as uncompetitive. More obviously, Southern
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 26
Africa suffers from a grossly undeveloped regional infrastructure that severely impacts
are the myriad agreements mentioned earlier that continue to be signed by various sub-
groups in the South African sovereign mix. Such treaties, protocols, contracts, unions,
and formal agreements, while looking good on paper, are commonly overlooked and
subject to prolonged periods of debate and ratification, during which action and genuine
motivates all industry and commerce, requires a delicate balancing of individual and
collective interests. Southern Africa, the nations of which carry multi-billion dollar debt
loads eroding efforts at capital accrual, continues to struggle with the concept of
collective good. That balance is essential to successful regional integration, and until that
balance is achieved, all the aforementioned impediments and challenges will continue to
Geographically distant from Southern Africa by 5,000 miles, South Asia, where
the nations of Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Sri Lanka share
frontiers and proximity to China as well as some of the planet’s most dramatic
topography, covers a vast area amounting to more than 3% of the planet’s land mass, and
is home to more than a quarter of the human population. Like Southern Africa, South
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 27
enormous challenges in providing adequate food to the region’s population. South Asia
does not enjoy the bounty of natural resources found in Southern Africa, but does have
greater geographic proximity to established trade routes and to markets outside the
region.
Although, like Southern Africa, efforts at regional integration in South Asia have
been ongoing for nearly 40 years, it remains one of the least economically integrated and
politically volatile areas in the world. A history of friction between nations pursuant to
long-standing political and military conflict has taken a serious toll on efforts to stimulate
intra-regional integration on every level. Evidence of that is the March 2014 World Bank
data revealing that South Asia’s 600 million citizens are in such limited circumstances as
to constitute fully 44% of the world’s population living in poverty, 500 million of which
In spite of South Asia’s economic growth over the past two decades and the
their promise of enhanced intra-regional trade providing the potential to increase GDP far
beyond the global productivity growth rate and to improve the economic well-being of
South Asia’s citizens, consensus over principles has not been translated into coherent
policies or action, and has thus far failed to produce positive, tangible outcomes. To that
protocols have been in place since the 1985 founding of the South Asian Association for
setting of a target date of 2016 for yet another attempt at unification with the projected
formation of the South Asian Free Trade Area. The question, however, is whether or not
these ongoing “agreements to agree” will have any significant impact when intra-regional
trade lags woefully behind the rate of exports outside the region. Several South Asian
partners who enjoy wider market access outside the region than others, and rather than
trading with those others regional partners, have increased exports tenfold over the past
decade. This results in the larger South Asian countries—India, Bangladesh, and
—are primarily driven by India’s strength as an exporter and its demonstrated low level
of reliance upon its regional trading partners for either raw materials, industrial
political volatility, distrust and increased levels of economic competition rather than
collaboration.
across regional frontiers, there are even more onerous practical impediments to trade
within South Asia rarely addressed in the agreements for which politicians periodically
congratulate themselves. Political and topographical geography play no small part in the
Zambia, and Malawi struggle to access international maritime ports, the most efficient
landlocked countries of Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bhutan are dependent upon Pakistan,
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 29
India, and to a much lesser extent upon Bangladesh for access to international shipping
facilities. Terrestrial transport in the region is equally problematic; the terrain throughout
most of the northern limits of South Asia is forbidding. The terrain in northern Pakistan
and throughout much of Afghanistan is among the most rugged on the planet. Looming
over the very cultures of Nepal and Bhutan are The Himalayas, where viable surface
trade routes are primitive at best. This lack of adequate surface infrastructure, coupled
with limited access to port services, consigns much of South Asia to patterns of limited
economic growth, and is the natural source of potential resentment and political distrust.
Like South Africa’s post-apartheid industrial and technological growth which has
led to its domination of Southern Africa, India has established itself as one of the world’s
fastest growing economies and finds itself in a strong leadership role in South Asia.
While all of South Asia has seen incremental growth in GDP over the past two decades,
India’s has been 40% higher than the region as a whole, and nearly double that of some
of its regional partners. With its exports to its regional neighbors amounting to less than
5% of its total global exports, and its imports from regional partners amounting to less
than 10% of its total imports, the economic and industrial strength of India does not
translate into more or better business volumes for the region at large.
Regional political conflicts between the region’s two most influential parties,
India and Pakistan, have been a long standing obstacle to effective regional integration,
and have had seriously negative affect upon the prospects for economic, cultural, social,
or military collaboration between the two. Since the “partition” of India by colonial
England following World War II into the republics of Pakistan and India, political and
1999. India, a secular nation with a predominantly Hindu population, shares a long
frontier with Pakistan, an Islamic Republic that is home to a strong Muslim majority
population. The military conflicts which followed their independence from colonial
control, while resolved to the point that neither side is actively invading the other, have
had a generational impact upon relations between the two countries. With a shared
border on the Arabian Sea, periodic territorial transgressions over fishing rights and
shipping lanes give rise to the occasional taking of prisoners by each nation. Both
nations continue to develop nuclear military weapons with the expressed intent to
constrain the aggressions of one another, hardly a policy conducive to integrated intra-
nations continue, and the exchange of scientific and computer technology has put both
Pakistan and India into leadership roles in the information age, none of which translates
Just as Southern African nations have a history of sovereign and tribal disputes
India and Pakistan, as well as the internal political strife of Nepal and Bangladesh on the
one hand and Sri Lanka on the other, have done little to promote successful regional
integration, and make prospects for improved trust and increased rates of integration
questionable. If South Asia is unable to reconcile the political and social differences
among its member partners, progress toward integration will continue to flounder.
regional integration shared by Southern Africa and South Asia, the most obvious
collaboration does not necessarily come at the expense of cultural, religious, or ethnic
disaster recovery (the recent earthquake in Nepal). Exploiting one’s own natural
resources to feed the industrial might of a neighbor (as in the case of Zambia and South
case of Bangladesh and India) may today have the appearance of “integration”, but
without foresight into the long term consequences of such resource-output imbalances,
the future will be more troubled than the politicians may anticipate.
For both Southern Africa and South Asia, increases in intra-regional trade and
mutual support and investment hold the promise of prosperity on a par with the rest of the
world. To achieve such a transformation—while both of these regions are competing for
the distinction for being the poorest on the planet—the value of traditional sovereign
concerns must be measured against the likelihood of deprivation and economic failure.
For some countries, politics based upon principles of national pride may have a price far
among unequal partners and those inequalities are not recognized and resolved, entropy
frequently ensues. When dominant partners (India and South Africa) ignore the needs of
their partners and foster economic relationships of resource exploitation rather than those
The history of Southern Africa, and its ongoing failure to realize the political and
economic objectives of the SADC should be instructive to the leadership of South Asian
countries. The geographic latitudes, climates, and cultures of the two regions may be
quite different, but the issues are remarkably alike. Both regions are affected by patterns
Political will requires more than another set of free trade agreements if it is to
concrete behaviors, financial investments, and commercial activities that support the
political will, change is possible. Where they are insufficient, not even the status quo is
easily maintained.
Conclusion
Southern Africa and South Asia, at first blush highly distinct in terms of their
histories, climates, cultures, ethnicities, and government systems, are shown by the
research to have many parallels. Their individual influence upon the myriad factors
affecting the well-being of their own citizens and of the world of large—GNP, poverty
part by their ever-expanding populations, have no global comparatives. When just one of
those regions is home to 25% of humanity, and when those 500 million people endure
lifelong squalor, poor nutrition, and disease vulnerability, that region’s economic vitality
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 33
and industrial capacity or the lack thereof cannot but help to affect everyone on the
planet. The problems of South Asia and Southern Africa, then, are problems shared by
all.
Once these regions completely threw off the shackles of European colonization in
the mid-20th Century, they each struggled through a series of internecine political
conflicts and wars that have had prolonged negative residual effect upon efforts at
cooperative regional integration; old resentments die hard and do little to mitigate cultural
and ethnic mistrust. The result is a lack of genuine belief by individual regional partners
in the promise of shared positive outcomes. Smaller, weaker nations within each region,
hopeful for a regime of mutual support and economic growth, have been consistently
frustrated and marginalized by their stronger regional partners. Neither India nor South
Africa have demonstrated the ability to share leadership within their respective regions,
frequently ignoring the sovereign interests of weaker partners in favor of their own. The
result has been decades of promises made with the best of intentions and little else in the
way of shared economic or productive growth for the particular region as a whole.
This less than promising pattern is well documented in a wide range of findings
and economic analysis published by academic and governmental researchers over the
past four decades. The review of the literature pertinent to these issues is unique in the
The body of research dating from the 1970s to today delivers a clear warning: if
the dominant regional partners (India and South America) do not unilaterally engage in
the development of their weaker regional partners from several important standpoints—
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 34
only deteriorate, the imbalances of regional power will continue to grow unchecked, and
the prospects for the prosperity of all regional partners will diminish. Short term gains in
the GDP of the dominant partners will likely erode in the face of overall regional decline
While the preponderance of past and present research paints a dismal picture, that
same research frequently offers data-based guidelines leading to brighter outcomes for
both Southern Africa and South Asia. Among the cornerstones that must be in place in
order to effect meaningful regional balance and development based upon research
findings are:
milestones
development
White Paper: Regional Integration in Southern Africa: Lessons for South Asia 35
management
and South Asia are many. Whether they are sufficient to completely overshadow
regional objectives is a question for national leaders to answer. The failure to address
those challenges vigorously and without regard to issues of individual sovereign interests
will serve only to consign these two regions and their member nations to a future sadly
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