Regional Developmentalism in West Africa: The Case for Commodity-based Industrialization through Regional Cooperation in the Cocoa–Chocolate Sector

According to the neoliberal paradigm, regional economic integration should strengthen a region's commercial interests and foster trade diversification and creation. Trade integration, in particular, involves the removal of tariff and nontariff barriers to trade and is expected to promote the free movement of goods, services, and factors of production across regional borders, thereby accelerating countries' economic growth and development Given its expected benefits, regional integration has been a key policy initiative across the African continent. This is evident in recent efforts to advance regional integration through the signing of the Agreement to establish an African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which aimed to create a continental market for goods and services, beginning March 2018. 1 However, despite multiple waves of regional economic integration initiatives over the years, the majority of African regional schemes have not achieved the ambitious goal of economic growth via trade creation, nor have regions become more economically integrated.