The process of regional intergration within the "organization for the management and development of the Kagera river basin": Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania

The subject matter of our study in regional integration is presented in five chapters, which are summarised below. Chapter I which establishes a working definition for “regional integration” also discusses the bourgeois theories of regional integration, which it finds inadequate, and then it discusses the Marxist-Leninist theory of regional integration which it adopts for the general orientation of the study. Chapter II very briefly examines the practice of regional integration in Western Europe, Latin America and the Communist Block, before making Africa its main point of focus. Four different African regional groupings, all built on the customs union model, are discussed, only to find that failure is their common denominator. The immediate, discernible reasons for this failure are the importance of customs revenue in the economics of underdeveloped countries, and the disparity in industrial infrastructure among the integrating countries. Chapter III gives the phased historical development of the Kagera River Basin Scheme which evolved from a “pooling of resources” approach an not a customs union approach, and it points out some of the problems already experienced by the scheme. Chapter IV analyses the regional integration process in the Kagera river Basin Scheme by checking certain aspects of the process against certain regional integration indicators set forth in the definition or in the theories of regional integration. Chapter V concludes that the motive behind regional integration in the advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe is the need to combat the disintegrative dynamic inherent in the capitalist mode of production, while the motive behind integration in underdeveloped countries is the urge to solve the problems of inderdevelopment. It however argues that regional integration is incapable of averting the inevitable collapse awaiting the capitalist mode of production now prevailing in Western Europe. It further concludes that in the underdeveloped world, regional integration is incapable of solving the fundamental problem of underdevelopment, whether the approach used is the customs union approach or any other approach, and that the Kagera River Basin Scheme is no exception to this rule. Nevertheless, it recognises the importance of a favourable political climate in solving other categories of problems in the region. In this connection, it sees in regional integration an unguaranteed potential for creating such a favourable political climate, and it makes management and policy recommendations deemed to be instrumental to that end. It finally sees in the Kagera River Basin a faint and distant possibility of rallying the workers and peasants of the three countries, plus their allies, as an initial step in the collective struggle against capitalism.