1.1 AFRICAN REGIONAL LANDSCAPE
List of Regional Economic Communities recognized by the African Union
Currently, there are eight RECs recognised by the AU, each established under a separate regional treaty. They are:
- Arab Maghreb Union (UMA)
- Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)
- Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD)
- East African Community (EAC)
- Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS)
- Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
- Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)
- Southern African Development Community (SADC)
Source – Wikipedia
Recently an African Free Trade Area has been created with the aim of increasing intra-African regional trade and investment.
This major initiative suggests that some form of supporting intra-regional payment processing will need to be considered in the near future.
This also suggests that the separate regions could also contemplate improvements to existing regional payment infrastructures. Should this take form then this is an opportunity for regions to learn from each other and with this document SADC offers to share its experiences of its development of its regional payment systems.
