Micro-regionalism in Africa: Dynamics, Opportunities and Challenges

A great deal of attention is currently placed on the examination of globalization and the costs and benefits of this process to nations, states, peoples, communities, vil-lages, and individuals. One important component of globalization, thought to provide significant developmental potential, is regionalization at various scales. This docu-ment examines the potential of micro-regionalism to contribute to development in Africa. A number of researchers note that micro-regionalism on the continent has reached a significant scale and presents unparalleled opportunities that are not present in other domains in Africa (Torre and Kelly, 1992; Trémolières, 2007; Tache, 2000; Söderbaum, 2004). Bach (2008) argues that an important part of this potential lies in the fact that micro-regionalism in Africa often involves a powerful cognitive component wherein boundaries defined through geo-ethnic or religious bonds have greater meaning than state boundaries. Highlighting the potential of micro-regions on the continent, Torre and Kelly (1992) state that Africa has the highest number of such regional groupings in the world, together with the largest number of dormant and in-effective arrangements that would facilitate their contribution to development. Such a mix of ingredients provides a potential that very likely does not exist elsewhere in the world. Thus, the value of providing capacity building assistance to micro-regional development in order to take advantage of what already exists on the ground would seem to be quite large. Examples of approaches for the successful development of micro-regions can be instructive. In Europe there exist very specific technical ap-proaches for the realization of micro-regional goals and objectives (Schmidt-Kallert, 2005).