Regional Integration and Trade: Overlapping Memberships and the Challenges of Regionalism in Africa.

Although regionalism has proliferated in sub-Saharan Africa since the advent of decolonization, success in terms of economic development are not promising. Examining intra- regional trade shows that there has been an increase as a result of regional trade integration; however the rate of increase differs among 4 key blocs in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper examines and test factors that affect the level of intra-regional trade among four regional trading blocs in sub-Saharan Africa: the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The main thesis of this paper is to reviewing and confirming the argument that multiple memberships in various regional trade agreements adversely affect intra-regional trade of a specific agreement. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]