Why do not African countries trade with one another? A qualitative study of factors affecting the intra-African trade

Sammanfattning: An increased regional trade in Africa is often defined as a key tool for a continued development of the continent, but although a numerous of policies aiming at increasing the trade have been adopted, the intra-regional trade remains stubbornly low. Why is that so? In this thesis some of the factors that potentially are affecting the trade are studied in a qualitative design. By conducting case studies on Mali and Zimbabwe—countries that have experienced a significant increase in their regional trade—the ambition of the paper is to in depth study and test if and how certain variables and mechanisms are affecting the trade. The variables are degree of free trade, transport and ICT infrastructure, peaceful environment and path dependency, and they are selected with the use of Rational Choice Institutionalism, Historical Institutionalism and earlier research. The using and testing of the variables are then done in a structured and focused analysis. The main findings of the thesis show that a liberalisation of trade policies together with a diversified transport infrastructure constitute necessary conditions for increasing the regional trade, whereas the political environment needs to be stable in the sense of no outright wars, but not necessarily internally stable.