L’intégration régionale est-elle un instrument de résilience pour les pays de la CEMAC ?
July 25, 2022
From the monetary and financial fields, regional integration in West Africa has extended to the trade sector, fiscal and macroeconomic policy coordination, and a range of sectoral policies. Regional integration can be further strengthened in all of these dimensions, whether by improving the security of financial transactions and the management of risks of financial instability, strengthening trade surveillance, improving the production of reliable macroeconomic information, and tariff policy developments, or the establishment of regional instruments to consolidate the common market and strengthen regional sectoral policies.
Regional integration in West Africa is an important vehicle for promoting growth and development for the states of the region.
In November 2011, at the request of the Ministers of Finance of the Franc Zone, the French Treasury Directorate General, in collaboration with the French Development Agency (AFD), launched a study on "Evaluating the expected gains from regional integration in African Franc Zone countries". FERDI, for whom this area is a priority, mobilized a large team of experts in fields as varied as trade integration, tax harmonization, and the institutional framework for integration, monetary and financial integration.
The foundation has since collaborated with WAEMU, CEMAC, the Banque de France, and the African Development Bank to produce research to support the strengthening of regional integration through Community policies.
Sustainable competitiveness and support for the CEMAC Commission in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. After analysing the impact on CEMAC of the external shocks from Covid and the erratic movements of oil prices, FERDI looked at the region's long-term development strategy. This work focused on the competitiveness of member states and the prospects for economic diversification. It helped support CEMAC in discussions with the IMF as part of the negotiation of the second generation of agreements.
CEMAC and reform of the common currency. Given the importance of the current debates and the mandate given by the Heads of State to the Commission and the BEAC about the reform and development of a common currency, FERDI has continued to contribute to the studies on this theme. The necessary changes to the multilateral surveillance framework in a period marked by external shocks also gave rise to work on a possible multilateral stabilisation fund or public debt, as well as on the CEMAC Commission's own financing.
University centres of excellence. The Heads of State of the CEMAC zone having decided to structure higher education and research around university centres of excellence, the CEMAC Commission asked FERDI to conduct a feasibility study. Based on an inventory of existing training courses and their economic model, recommendations were formulated and presented at a workshop on 7 and 8 April 2022.
