The Prospects and Challenges of the Proposed African Free Trade Zone (Aftz): A Search for A New Theory

 Okeke V.O.S PhD

Department Of Political Science,  Faculty Of Social Sciences, Anambra Sate University, Nigeria, West Africa

Email:  Okekevos@Yahoo.Com +2348033847373, +2348026042793

Accepted 17 April 2014

Abstract

The African Free Trade Zone (AFTZ) is a free trade zone announced at the EAC-SADC-COMESA Summit on Wednesday 22 October 2008 by the heads of Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the East African Community (EAC). The African Free Trade Zone is also referred to as the African Free Trade Area in some official documents and press releases. In May 2012 the idea was extended to also include ECOWAS, ECCAS and AMU (Africa free trade zone in operation by 2018). The announcement of the Tripartite Summit of Heads of State and Government of member states of East African      Community-Southern African Development Community-Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, EAC-SADC-COMESA, to establish an African Free Trade Zone (AFTZ) has been greeted with optimism in many quarters, and as such hailed as a welcome development. This optimism concerning the prospects of the proposed AFTZ, though often exaggerated, is not totally unfounded as it could help African Economic Community (AEC) strengthen intra-Regional Economic Communities, RECs, and inter-RECs integration by reducing the incidence of multiple memberships and proliferation of regional economic groups and subgroups. This paper, however, argues that the proposed AFTZ would be confronted with some potential challenges capable of, not just hindering, but torpedoing these prospects. The study is essentially prognostic. The Thrust of this paper is to exam the prospects and challenges of the proposed African free trade zone (aftz): the search for a new theory.

Keywords : African, Free Trade Zone, Theory