A United African Economy

                                                                A UNITED AFRICAN ECONOMY                                 

On 25th of March 1957 a group of six European countries got together to sign the Treaty of Rome.

Under this treaty the foundation was laid for what would eventually become the European community currently consisting of 27 member states. The sole purpose of this community was to promote a single economic and political union across its 27 member states whilst practising both supranationalism and intergovernmentalism and with the birth of the Euro in 2002 the dream of a single European market became a reality.

The European community with its population of about 500 million people generates an estimated 30% share of the world's nominal gross world product. Statistics rumoured the European community's combined nominal gross world product at $16.8 trillion dollars in 2007.

Now anybody with the slightest penchant for business understands the value and importance of corporate merger and how this action redefines and repositions a corporation’s financial and behavioural pattern on the global market. To me a country could be likened to a business enterprise where the least and slightest government in-calculations or in-considerations could trigger scenes of an economic catastrophe too horrific to be detailed because after all people are the living and the living need life and life is money for the living. And here is where a United African economy should be in order not only to prioritize the human essence across the African continent but also to control the wealth of the continent.

The list below gives us an overview of why our unity should be seriously considered.

Richest African Countries 2006: GDP Per Country

South Africa … $606.4 billion in international$ (up 8% from 2005)

Algeria ... $262.2 billion (up 8.5%)

Nigeria  … $181.8 billion (up 10.2%)

Morocco … $150.8 billion (up 4.8%)

Sudan … $98.8 billion (up 11.2%)

Tunisia … $91.4 billion (up 7.4%)

Ethiopia … $78.4 billion (up 12%)

Ghana  … $59.4 billion (up 9.1%)

Angola … $53.9 billion (up 24.3%)

Democratic Republic of Congo … $50.4 billion (up 9.7%)

Uganda … $48.5 billion (up 9.2%)

Kenya  … $45.6 billion (up 8.9%)

Cameroon … $40.3 billion (up 5.7%)

Côte d'Ivoire … $31.4 billion (up 4.9%)

Tanzania … $30.6 billion (up 10%)

Out of 50 African nations, the top 10 countries above generated almost 40% of Africa’s total GDP in 2006.   Now considering the amount of money coming into the pockets of these 15 African nations, if they could join their markets and set up one common Bank or a financial institution to oversee their vast wealth and affairs whilst controlling the inflationary status amongst themselves, I wonder where this continent and its people would be. And of course this financial institution or Bank could also offer the ordinary citizen the privilege to hold a private bank account or savings account where returns on savings could be turned into stocks. 

The realization of a single market economy amongst these nations would not only improve the economic efficiency amongst these nations but also a common currency would help optimize their interdependent trade pursuits on the global front. Some of the advantages which come with a single currency is the removal of costs associated with exchanging currencies and exchange rate risks which helps promote investor's confidence and of course commodity price control which prevents arbitrage which simply means the practice of taking advantage of a price differential between two or more markets.

 Since its introduction, the Euro has evolve into the second most widely-held international reserve currency after the the U.S. dollar which means that the Euro is held in significant quantities by foreign governments as part of their exchange reserves and some of these governments also tend to price their commodities in this very currency. This of course permits the Euro countries to buy at a cheaper rate in comparison to other countries which would have to exchange their currency with each purchase.

Now if the 15 most richest countries in Africa could put aside the internal differences and do what exactly the Europeans have done successfully, the chance of their currency ruling the world is probable. The Western world and its market cannot survive on technology alone it needs resources, the kind of resources which we have in abandons but are being mismanaged by our leaders with misplaced priorities.

Let's not forget to remember that the Western world needs us more than we need them but we would never know how much we don't need them until we unite our forces together and free ourselves from them.

The African continent and its countries cannot and must no longer depend on foreign credits to feed its people if it seeks to be counted with respect and dignity, because if the Europeans could set aside their differences and pursue a collective agenda then by God Almighty so could we, but  first we need to understand what unites us and move on from there.  And if it is the blood which flows through the veins of all Africans irrespective of race, culture, religion or what have you then let's understand that this blood is thicker than water, thus all the reason to unite.

Dr Kwame Nkrumah once said that those who do not unite simply declare their own and kind to extinction and I say people we cannot no longer afford to waste time on our unity, because it’s imperative to our survival and time is of the essence but we are running out of time.

Source:   MP