ABSTRACT
Starting from a stock-taking of the millennium development goals, the paper emphasizes the need to pay greater attention to Africa’s regional dimension in the context of the post-2015 development agenda. Three main arguments are elaborated in this respect. First, translating the sustainable development goals (SDGs) into regional development strategies can enhance the link between global objectives and the multifaceted reality of a multi-polar world, enhancing policy coherence, and providing a strategic option to strengthen Africa’s bargaining power vis-à-vis both developed and emerging partners. Secondly, a regional approach to SDGs can facilitate the definition of relevant targets/indicators and enhance the monitoring and evaluation framework. In so doing it could also offer the scope to integrate more closely SDGs’ social and environmental concerns into existing development frameworks. Thirdly, focusing just on the economic sphere – the area where Africa’s integration is relatively more advanced – increasing evidence suggests that effective regional integration can support the continent’s transformation agenda and foster more inclusive and sustainable growth.
