REPORT Policymakers' Roundtable

On 15 – 16th May the Building Bridges programme at the Graduate School of Development Policy and Practice (GSDPP) hosted a Policymakers’ Roundtable at Erinvale Estate on “Driving African Economic Integration: Penetrating the Political Economy Obstacles.” 

The objective of the policymakers’ roundtable on African Economic Integration, which is part of GSDPP’s Building Bridges programme, was to identify some of the key obstacles to African Economic Integration, and strategies to address them. 

The roundtable brought together policymakers to identify and engage effectively with the levers of change using a political economy approach in order to move the integration agenda forward. 

It engaged with the following questions: 
• What is the incentive, at a regional, national and sub-national level? 
• What are the institutions that are helping to drive integration forward, or holding it back? 
• What are the interests that are blocking more effective movement, or driving the movement forward? • How do we develop effective coalitions of reform that will be able to counteract what appear to be blocking coalitions which prevent more effective African Economic Integration? 
• How do we strengthen the reform coalitions to unlock the way forward? 
• Where are the pressure points? 
• Where are the levers of change? 
• How do we drive change more effectively? 
• What are some of the key areas where an effective research programme would help to drive the process forward? 

Download Report 
Download Participant Biographies 
Download Press Statement