The Community of Sahel-Saharan States

The chapter addresses the examines the trade performance of the Community of the Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD). The CEN-SAD boasts of 29 member countries, which together account for about 44% of Africa’s land area, 47% of Africa’s total population in 2019, and 51% of its total gross domestic product (GDP) in that year. Established in 1998, it became an African Union regional economic community in 2006. Most of the trade conducted by CEN-SAD members occurred outside of the group instead of inside the group. CEN-SAD was formed in 1998 so the 1995 data is an estimate based on the member countries traded among themselves before CEN-SAD was formed. At that time, the data shows that only 8% of export trade conducted by the member countries occurred among them. An additional 1.5% occurred with Africa, bringing the group’s intra-African trade to 9.6%, while 90.4% outside of Africa. Over the years, export trade among CEN-SAD members declined slightly from 8%, while export trade with the rest of Africa increased slightly. In 2019, export trade within CEN-SAD accounted for 7.1%, that within Africa was 12.5%, and the rest of the world was 87.5%. Much of CEN-SAD’s problems have been attributed to institutional curse and overlapping membership. These, of course, create problems of which countries to trade with, where, and when. The question is to what extent can we attribute CEN-SAD’s low percentage of intraregional trade to these factors? Could CEN-SAD’s intraregional trade percentage been higher if it had stronger or more effective institutions and without overlapping membership? Could better institutions and non-overlapping membership make member states of CEN-SAD trade more among themselves? Based on CEN-SAD’s trade patterns, the answers to these questions are definitely not. This is because, like other African countries, CEN-SAD’s economies produce predominantly primary goods, most of which they do not consume, and consume goods most they do not produce. This state of affairs must change in order to boost CEN-SAD’s intraregional trade.