Assessing Infrastructure Integration in African Regional Economic Communities (RECs): Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities

As Africa continues to pursue its regional integration agenda as a strategy for boosting inter-state cooperation across the various sectors and overcoming the barriers to free movement of goods, services, labour, and capital in order to ultimately stir economic growth and spur sustainable economic development as envisioned in Agenda 2063, the role of infrastructure in physically and virtually integrating the continent increasingly remains critical. With the advent of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), under which trade began in January 2021, the urgency, pre-eminence, eminence, and need for cross-sectoral infrastructure development and modernisation at national, regional, and continental levels have become key as a success factor for the AfCFTA, intra-African trade, and free movement of labour and capital across the continent. The eight African regional economic communities (RECs) recognised by the African Union (that is, AMU, COMESA, CEN-SAD, EAC, ECCAS, ECOWAS, IGAD, and SADC) have been executing several regional infrastructure plans, policies, programmes, and projects, while at the continental level, the African Union - in collaboration with various partners and stakeholders - has also been coordinating the implementation of various cross-regional and cross-continental infrastructure projects. Empirically establishing progress made by African states, RECs, and the AU towards infrastructure integration is fundamental to appreciating the infrastructure development performance at national and regional levels so as to identify successes, challenges, and valuable lessons as Africa pursues its regional integration agenda. This paper sought to assess progress made towards infrastructure integration in African RECs. Further, traditional and emerging challenges affecting the design, implementation, and operationalisation of infrastructure integration projects were also identified, and future prospects for African regional infrastructure integration were analysed. The concepts of regional infrastructure development and integration constitute the conceptual frames of analysis, while data from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)'s Africa Regional Integration Index (ARII) was utilised for progress evaluation and inter-REC comparative analysis. Findings from the study are fundamental in shaping recommendations that are meant to improve and enhance the physical and virtual integration of RECs and the continent through the delivery of infrastructure integration projects.