Economic organizations in Africa. The main economic power of Africa south of the Sahara Desert is South African Republic.
Through its well developed infrastructure and deepwater ports, South Africa handles much of the trade for the whole southern African region. In 1970 its immediate neighbours, Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho, and latterly Namibia, signed the Southern African Customs Union SACU enabling them to share in the customs revenue from their trade passing through South African ports.
In order to counter the economic dominance of South Africa in the southern African region, the countries to the north of it organised themselves into the Southern African Development Conference SADC . Member states include those of the SACU as well as Angola, situated north of Namibia, and it s oil-rich enclave of Cabinda, and Mozambique on the east coast, and the countries of south-central Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania signed Treaty for Enhanced East African Co-operation in order to allow free flow of goods and people.
The small landlocked central African countries of Rwanda and Burundi form part of an economic union of countries in the central African region. Other members of the Economic Community of Central African States are Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, the oil-rich Congo and Gabon and the vast country of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Economic Community of West African States ECOWAS is a solid geographical bloc of 15 states from Nigeria in the east to Mauritania in the west. The countries of Mauritania, Mali and Niger are located in the southern stretch of the Sahara Desert while the remaining countries are splayed out along the coast line. As a result of their respective colonial histories, these countries are divided into French and English-speaking states.
The francophone countries include the republics of Benin, Burkina Faso, Togo, the Ivory Coast Côte d Ivoire , Guinea and Senegal while the remaining states of Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia have English as their official language.
The Republic of Guinea Bissau is a Portuguese-speaking state to the south of Senegal. 5.