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We examine how the degree of regional financial integration in African stock markets has evolved over the last eleven years. Despite increasing regional economic cooperation, the process of stock market integration has been slow. To facilitate growth via developed financial markets but keep financial stability risk at a minimum, further regional integration should be promoted, and mild capital controls on non-African investors may be necessary. A Diebold-Yilmaz spillover analysis is applied to ten African stock markets for the period between August 2004 and January 2015. We examine spillovers among four regions and among individual countries. Regional integration, as measured by total spillovers in Africa, is increasing but remains very low. These spillovers were temporarily heightened during the global financial crisis. Cross-regional spillovers are high between Northern and Southern Africa. Asymmetric capital controls on African and non-African investors must be considered to foster further regional integration and to mitigate financial stability risk. This is one of the few studies to address the construction of the future architecture of regionally integrated stock markets in emerging countries.

African regional integration and market-building processes have not lived up to their expectations in terms of the development of intra-regional international business and the contribution to reaching broader socioeconomic development goals. The purpose of this paper is to critically reflect on the indicator-based monitoring tools that have been designed and used to assess these processes.

The assessment is based on a comparative analysis of all relevant cases for which information is publicly available. Complementary expert opinion has also been taken into account.

This study finds that there is room for improvement of the existing monitoring systems, both with respect to their governance and technical aspects, so that they can have more impact on the respective integration processes and can better guide the business strategies.

This is the first systematic comparative assessment of indicator-based monitoring systems for African regional integration.

This paper aims to examine the road ahead for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), focusing on its potential opportunities and challenges. It is intended to help the AfCFTA’s effective implementation by highlighting the major areas of intervention for State Parties.

The paper analyses relevant economic, political and legal research sources on regional integration in Africa and offers some personal views of the author to evaluate the past, present and future of the AfCFTA.

The paper shows that the AfCFTA can support its State Parties’ industrialization and diversification, better integrate micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to regional value chains, create jobs, encourage sustainable investments and help its State Parties have common positions on global issues and achieve development. But, it also shows the challenges facing the AfCFTA, which include infrastructure gap, revenue and job losses, overlapping membership of State Parties in Regional Economic Communities, cumbersome customs systems, difficulty to cross African borders, fledgling MSMEs and inadequate technical capacity on trade policy. Accordingly, it recommends that State Parties continuously take various actions to address these challenges and maximize the multiple benefits of the AfCFTA.

The paper provides a comprehensive and up-to-date appraisal of the opportunities and challenges of the AfCFTA, both in the context of the history of regional integration in Africa and the recent global shocks that adversely impacted the continent (COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine).

This chapter discusses some of the internationalisation (e.g. mergers and acquisitions, networks and strategic alliances) of household names into Africa – especially in the aftermath two simultaneous events – that is, the African Continental Free Trade Area and British exit from the European Union (Brexit) with or without a trade deal. This chapter also touches upon the need for inter-functional integration in driving forward Africa’s creative industries – notably the intersections between entrepreneurship and innovation within which business models in digital publishing and software development, as well as localisation of animation and games in Africa have been seen.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the gravity model to examine the role of infrastructure (including human capital (HC)), macroeconomic policies, the institutional quality and the colonial regimes on intra-African trade during the period 1990-2013. The results show that the basic gravity variables have substantial influence on the bilateral trade in the continent. Most interestingly, whilst internal conflicts appear to have harmful and significant impacts on the flow of such trade, HC, the flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the British colonial regime appear as encouraging factors. The results of the study imply that devoting more resources to HC and creating a favourable investment environment should come as a top priority in current efforts to facilitate Africa’s economic regionalism.

The paper employs Tobit technique on a semi-log extended form for the gravity model.

The results show that the basic gravity variables have substantial influence on the bilateral trade in the continent. Most interestingly, whilst internal conflicts appear to have harmful and significant impacts on the flow of such trade; HC, the flow of FDI and the British colonial regime come out as encouraging factors.

The results provided can be useful to design policies oriented to facilities intra-trade between African economies. So far, this is the first study that incorporates the soft type of infrastructures, colonization and institutional quality in the investigation of the factors that can influence intra-Africa trade.

The objective of this chapter is to advocate a relevant and balanced curriculum of European Studies as a discipline that African and European teachers and learners can embrace. This will be achieved through critical documentary analysis of existing curricula on the subject as well as critique of relevant literature. Europe and Africa are the two most contiguous continents that share centuries of relations. Despite the existence of many forms of diplomatic relations, knowledge flows and exchange between the continents have been very minimal at best and apparently unidirectional. The troubled history of relations between the two continents continue to affect way knowledge production and curricular are defined. The gap in knowledge fosters mutual suspicion, distrust, and lack of cooperation. European Studies as a distinct academic discipline has recently made its way in the teaching and learning curricula of universities and research centers around the world. Some institutions in Africa are also introducing European Studies. A key aspect of European Studies vis-á-vis Africa is the content and quality of curriculum. The turn in discourses on decolonization and race relations in the world of the early twenty-first century makes this period a unique opportunity for the review of European Studies curricula in Europe and Africa. The authors find that deepening Euro-African relations will require a new curriculum that would reflect changes that have taken place over the years in Africa.

Building industrial clusters is getting much more political attention and strategic orientation in all developing countries. This study started by revising the conceptual and theoretical frameworks for industrial clusters, followed by some insights and contributions about empirical bases for clusters' dynamics and processes. The study focused on the case of Agadir Agreement between four Arab countries (Egypt, Jordon, Morocco, and Tunisia), which was initiated after the Euro-Mediterranean partnerships, and the rationale of the agreement was based on the concept of cumulative value-added origin. The study based its methodology on analyzing the international and bilateral trade flows of six industrial goods from the automotive sector among the four countries and with the EU countries to detect the degree of industrial collaboration and the achieved success of each country in this sector. The study indicated that the four countries used the concept of industrial clusters for economic development, but the results of the analysis showed that till now Agadir Agreement only achieved a shallow integration, while failed to deeply integrate as one big collaborative industrial cluster.

This paper examines the impact of regional and non-regional trade on economic growth using annual data from Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) member countries for the period 2007 to 2017.

Trade data were decomposed into regional (trade among ECOWAS Member States) and non-regional (trade between ECOWAS Member States and the rest of the world). We used the dynamic system GMM to estimate the models and introduced exchange rate, unemployment rate, population growth and gross capital formation as controlled variables.

The results revealed that the estimated coefficient of ECOWAS regional trade is statistically significant and positive in predicting growth, while the non-regional trade coefficient is negative and not statistically significant in predicting growth. Other predictors of growth introduced into the model as controlled variables, such as exchange rate, unemployment rate, population growth and gross capital formation, displayed mixed results. More importantly, population growth, unemployment and exchange rate depreciation hurt economic growth, while gross capital formation promotes economic growth.

The findings provide strong support in favour of the Krugman (1991) hypothesis that regional trade agreements (RTAs) are a better alternative to global trade.

Our decision to disaggregate ECOWAS trade is unique and influenced largely by the objective of the study, which is to establish the type of ECOWAS trade that is a good predictor of growth. The evidence from our findings support the theory that RTAs are a better catalyst to economic growth.

This paper aims to assess the “external dimension” goals of the Pan European Bologna reform, almost 19 years after its launch. The influences of the reform on higher education in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia-Pacific are investigated. The paper analyses the appeal of the 1999 Bologna Process (BP), which, arguably, symbolizes an effort to strengthen the hegemony of Western European education and influence, has for the first time gone beyond ex-colonial lines, including areas where Europe’s socio-political influence is not impactful.

This paper opted for an analytical review of the literature on the European higher education internationalization goals as stated in external dimension objectives of the Bologna Process reform. The literature search was complicated by the limited number of peer review articles focusing on the spread of the Bologna model beyond Europe. As a result, the inclusion criteria were flexible, and consideration was given to educational website reports/articles, dissertations, books, pamphlets, and internal EU/European Commission reports.

The findings of this review indicate that, in spite of significant challenges, the internationalization objectives of Bologna Process are gradually being met in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Most notable is that some countries that historically did not have a European colonial presence are embracing aspects of the Bologna reform. Almost 19 years after, the BP reform now has a significant external influence not only in the former Portuguese, Spanish, British and French colonies but also beyond. In spite of the overwhelming embrace of the BP model in Europe and outside of Europe, its implementation, everywhere, has faced some administrative, political, and economic challenges.

The study examined the spread of the Bologna Process models beyond Europe and not its acceptability by stakeholders such as faculty and students outside Europe. Future research could examine the satisfaction rates among higher education stakeholders in regions and countries embracing the BP models.

The findings of this review indicate that the steady spread of the BP means that more countries and tertiary education institutions can explore opportunities aimed at developing more educational and socioeconomic partnership, including the exchange of knowledge, technology and resources.

While emphasizing the benefits and opportunities for cooperation, the paper identifies that the increasing internationalization trends influenced by the BP are leading to regional higher education cooperation in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Other higher education models around the world can learn from the marketing strategies of the BP aided by EU.