Rethinking regional integration in Africa for inclusive and sustainable development:introduction to the special issue

This article is an introduction to this Special Issue on Rethinking in Regional Integration in Africa which is based on a collaborative research project, implemented by African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), the leading economic capacity building institution in Africa, and funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB). This project is very timely given the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) which came into force on 01 January 2021. In this introduction, we first provide a brief background on regional integration in Africa. We next describe the AERC project and the process of selection of the papers and then provide a quick summary of the ten published papers and their contributions.