Regional Cooperation and Globalization

ⅠBackground

African development issues draw many intention from international world. Why is africa is in the issues? There is nothing much changes so far in fundamenntal situation and structure that attribute to main result in african poverty.

Since 2000, african economy has been experiencing growth but average real GDP growth rate was 2.1% from 1980 to 2001.

As a result, economic growth was under population growth that decreased, showing structure poverty.

In addition, there are also social problem that has not been yet settled which is conflicts, famine, disease comes from HIV/AIDS and malaria and debt.

Since 1990, after cold war, there was some huge changes in international circumstance around Africa.

That is glottalization, decreasing Official Development Assistance from donors and international organizations, building up development assistance agenda for poverty reduction.

key words : economic integration, economic growth, african integration

Ⅱ. Global financial crisis on Sub-Saharan African countries

Sub-Saharan African countries are still less integrated into global financial markets than emerging economies. However, spillover effects from global crisis after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008 also hit African economies. The international trade collapse and the downturn of foreign capital inflows led to a major growth slowdown in 2009; this slowdown differed according to African countries' exposure to the glottalization. The implementation of counter cyclical budgetary policies certainly provided support for economic activities but resulted in higher fiscal deficit and public indebtedness. The decline of international trade weakened current accounts of many Sub-Saharan African countries; however, no specific tension emerged on external liquidity in these countries. In the medium term, the impact of international crisis reveals the necessity to strengthen management tools to absorb and respond to external shocks (fiscal and monetary policies). Going forward, the crisis reveals requirements for pro-active policies to mobilize domestic resources (tax system and financial system), to bolster competitiveness (productive diversification, regional trade agreements, etc.) and to tackle social issues efficiently as well.

Ⅲ. Regional integration in Africa

I pick up this issue because there are some arguments for regional cooperation.

Furthemore most african countries remain highly independent on agriculture and suffer from high level of food insecurity. I think new regional addresses are should be discussed later.

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