Africa and the challenges of regional integration

It is widely acknowledged that Africa's integration efforts have not recorded the desired results. While other regions of the world have successfully used their integration mechanisms to improve their general wellbeing, regional integration in Africa has got a whole lot of challenges to contend with. In spite of the fact that several regional bodies are domiciled in the African continent, none of the African States is categorized as a 'developed' country. Majority of these African states are extremely poor, while others are developing. This paper hence attempts to examine the challenges to regional integration in Africa with special emphasis on different regional organizations domiciled in the African continent. It shows that lack of fund and standing army in many regions as well as poverty, conflict, war, terrorism, poor policy implementation, military intervention in politics, hegemonic politics, ideological differences and colonial influence were major factors that affect the road to integration. Finally, the paper called for increased home-bred developmental policies as against the neo-imperial ideas, while there is the need to strengthen the political will amongst sovereign states to build sustainable regional integration.