The 8 countries of North Africa share common cultural, ethnic and linguistic identity with people of the Middle eastern region and West Asia. The North Africa population totals approximately 189,6 million people. Geographically this region is isolated from countries south of the Sahara desert often referred to as Sub-Saharan Africa. As a consequence of this North Africans often identify more with the Arab community of the Middle-east than with the Sub-Saharan region given the regions Arab ethnic link as well as the natural dessert border in between.
In this region it is challenging to build infrastructure that can link the North with sub-Sahara for the movement of people and goods on land, without having to traverse the vast dunes of the mighty Sahara, and one of the only ways to move between the territories is via the great Nile river. The Blue Nile is a main source of water for Egypt and two other major countries, Sudan and Ethiopia. This tributary of the Nile river unusually flows north from the South in Ethiopia, through Sudan (located in between the two disputing nations) and further downstream to Egypt.
Political stability is crucial for development to take place on the continent and it is not the intension of the Blog to focus on politics however there is emerging tension between Ethiopia and Egypt, two power houses of their respective regions (East and North) with 100m people in population each. This is due to the development of a dam in Ethiopia where Ethiopia plans to build a Hydro-power plant that will produce 6300 megawatts of power needed to supply Ethiopias burgeoning economic development.
The main dispute is around how quickly Ethiopia will fill the damn (planned 4-6 years, while Egypt is pushing for double the time). If it is filled too quickly, Egypt argues that this may impact Egypt’s water supply downstream. At the time of writing Ethiopia has almost completed construction of the damn and will start filling the damn. Egypt is seeking mediation from the Security Council on the implementation the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project. At the time of writing the dispute is yet to be resolved, with a potential of armed conflict should agreement not be reached.
Although North Africa has all the attributes for intra-regional integration given all the characteristics listed in the table above and given the similarities discussed, uniting North Africa, theoretically should be the easiest thing to do. However external broader regional cooperation will be crucial for broader regional integration between the regions (the fast developing East and the Sahara Region in the North). The dam project dispute highlighted above will be crucial to resolve in the near term. The African Union is working hard to resolve the dispute amicably for all parties involved without involving the UN Security Council, where other vested interests may negatively influence the negotiations.
Key Industries in North Africa
The economies of Algeria and Libya were transformed by the discovery of oil and natural gas reserves in the deserts. Morocco‘s major exports are phosphates and agricultural produce, and as in Egypt and Tunisia, the tourist industry is essential to the economy. Egypt has the most varied industrial base, importing technology to develop electronics and engineering industries, and maintaining the reputation of its high-quality cotton textiles.
Oil rigs are scattered throughout the deserts of Libya and Algeria. Libyan oil is especially prized because of its low sulfur content, which means it produces much less pollution than other fuel oils.
All the countries in North Africa are signatories to the ACFTA and can really push forward with integration regionally under the terms of this agreement. In addition to this, the region will need to find Technological solutions to integrate more with the broader sub-Saharan region to fully exploit the opportunities in the ‘knowledge economy’.
