Economic hurdles for African Union

AU: Riding into the dawn of a new African dream?

By Andrew Walker BBC Economics Correspondent

If Africa ever achieves what the new Union sets out to do, it will take decades.

The key economic aims include a single market, and a single currency with a single central bank.

Economic integration could take decades to achieve

The European Union took more than 40 years to do that. Africa cannot realistically expect to do it much faster.

The obstacles will be immense. Uneven standards of political institutions will make it very difficult to build shared organisations.

Diverging levels of economic development - between relatively advanced South Africa and many of the world's poorest countries - will pose problems for economic integration.

But these problems need not be insurmountable given the political will to press ahead.

Single market

Two groups of countries - in West and Central Africa - have long had shared currencies, each with a single central bank.

The lowering of trade barriers that is needed to create a single market is already partly underway in Africa as a result of global negotiations in the World Trade Organisation.

Poor Mozambique is getting investment from rich South Africa

Europe's experience also demonstrates that differences between countries need not prevent integration.

That point is underlined by European Union proposals to expand to include some of the former communist states of central and eastern Europe.

Africa's plan fits alongside other initiatives, notably the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), a programme promoting democratic political institutions and market based economic development.

For Africa, the great question is likely to be whether there is the political commitment and organisation to make the new Union work.