In preparing for the Amandla Parapo 2026 fireside conversation on Policy and Leadership for Building Collective Sovereignty, I found myself thinking about a meeting I attended last year in Cape Town.
I had been invited to a technical working group tasked with developing a continent-wide index on political transitions in Africa. Representatives of all the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) were present. We had an opportunity to bring together different regional experiences and develop a framework that could help us understand political transitions across the continent.
What struck me was the way the presentations unfolded. Each REC explained its work, its experience and the value of its own approach. That was understandable. These institutions have their own mandates and member states. But I found myself wondering whether we were there to build a common framework or to establish the standing of our respective institutions. There was knowledge in the room that could have strengthened the work of others, yet the sense of competition sometimes seemed stronger than the willingness to collaborate.
I left thinking about the gap between having continental and regional institutions and getting them to work together in practice.
African countries regularly negotiate with global powers and corporations that have far greater economic weight, financial resources and technical capacity. Individually, many have limited room to manoeuvre. Together, they could negotiate better terms, shape investment decisions and exercise greater influence over the rules governing their economies. But that requires governments to agree on priorities and act collectively, even when individual interests pull them in different directions.
Consider the growing international demand for Africa’s critical minerals. The continent has an opportunity to do more than supply raw materials for other countries’ industries. It could capture more value through local processing, manufacturing, skills development and regional supply chains.
Yet governments are competing to attract investors. Each wants jobs, revenues and projects it can point to as evidence of progress. When neighbouring countries offer competing concessions to secure similar investments, the investor has greater bargaining power while the countries risk losing the advantages of a coordinated approach.
Governments could do things differently. They could agree on common standards for mineral contracts, pool technical and legal expertise, coordinate their approach to processing and exports, and identify complementary roles in regional supply chains. This would not require every country to pursue identical policies. It would mean agreeing on the areas where cooperation gives each country a better chance of securing a worthwhile deal.
The same thinking should guide trade and regulation. We do not need to wait for every African country to harmonise every law before businesses can benefit from regional integration. Where appropriate, countries could begin by recognising one another’s product certifications, professional qualifications and licences. Mutual recognition would reduce the cost of doing business across borders while allowing governments to retain legitimate differences in their domestic systems.
We also need greater clarity about the relationship between continental and regional institutions. The African Continental Free Trade Area provides a continental framework, while the RECs have accumulated experience and agreements that can support implementation. Rather than create parallel systems or leave businesses navigating overlapping rules, Africa needs a clearer division of responsibilities: common continental standards, regional coordination and national institutions responsible for putting commitments into effect.
That is easier said than done. A government must answer to its own citizens, and no president will willingly surrender authority simply because a regional agreement calls for it. Smaller countries must also be confident that common arrangements will not allow larger neighbours to dominate decisions.
This is why the rules of cooperation matter as much as the ambition behind them.
In my work on governance and institutional strengthening, I have seen how policies lose direction when responsibilities are unclear, incentives are misaligned or nobody is held accountable for results. Regional integration faces the same difficulties. Agreements need named institutions responsible for delivery, clear milestones and regular reviews of progress. National implementation committees must have the authority and resources to resolve obstacles, not simply attend meetings and report that implementation is under way.
A public scorecard tracking progress on customs procedures, tariffs, standards and agreed reforms would help make commitments visible. Governments and regional bodies should be able to see who is delivering, where implementation has stalled and what needs to change. A first review after twelve months would provide a useful test of whether the arrangements are producing results.
External negotiations require similar discipline. Before a country signs a major agreement with an external power that could affect regional or continental commitments, there should be a requirement to notify and consult its partners. No government will accept this out of goodwill alone. It will accept it because the same obligation binds its neighbours: each country gains early sight of what others are negotiating and is less likely to be undercut by them. A register of such agreements and an independent assessment of their compatibility with existing frameworks would help identify conflicts before they become difficult to resolve.
This is particularly important in negotiations over energy, digital trade and strategic infrastructure. Countries could pool negotiating expertise, market intelligence and legal support, and agree on common objectives even where national governments retain responsibility for signing individual contracts. Collective bargaining need not mean that every country accepts identical terms. It means negotiating from shared information and a shared sense of what matters most.
What happens when a country disregards an agreed position? Enforcement cannot rest on threats alone. African institutions should first make cooperation worth preserving by providing practical benefits: access to shared technical teams, coordinated financing opportunities, better market access and stronger negotiating support. Peer review and public reporting can expose repeated non-compliance. Where existing agreements provide for dispute settlement or consequences, those mechanisms should be used consistently.
There are lessons to draw from the European Union and ASEAN, although neither offers a model Africa can simply adopt. The EU demonstrates the strength of common rules backed by legal institutions, while ASEAN shows how cooperation can progress among states protective of their sovereignty. Africa needs an approach suited to its own circumstances: firm procedures for consultation and accountability, with flexibility in the areas where countries are not yet ready to move together.
Leadership will determine whether such arrangements take hold. It requires presidents and ministers to accept that a shared regional gain may sometimes be worth more than an immediate national advantage. Public servants, diplomats and future leaders also need practical experience of working across borders, including joint training, staff exchanges and opportunities to negotiate and solve problems together.
I keep returning to Cape Town because the challenge was visible in a relatively ordinary technical meeting. Nobody needed to negotiate a major trade deal or resolve a border dispute. We were trying to develop a common framework for understanding political transitions, drawing on the experience of institutions already working across the continent. Even there, finding common ground was not automatic. We had the people and experience to build a stronger continental framework; the challenge was turning that collective resource into a shared result. Africa faces the same challenge on a much larger scale.
So the question I want to bring to the Amandla Parapo conversation is this: what will it take for African governments and regional institutions to move beyond declarations of unity and make collective action part of how they negotiate, invest and govern?
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Dr. Wale Osofisan, PhD, is a seasoned governance strategist and policy analyst with over 23 years of experience advancing African-led, evidence-based solutions to political transitions, humanitarian crises and development challenges.
