African Economic Community

The African Economic Community (AEC) is an organization of African Union states establishing grounds for mutual economic development among the majority of African states. The stated goals of the organization include the creation of free trade areas, customs unions, a single market, a central bank, and a common currency (see African Monetary Union) thus establishing an economic and monetary union.

Currently there are multiple regional blocs in Africa, also known as Regional Economic Communities (RECs), many of which have overlapping memberships. The RECs consist primarily of trade blocs and, in some cases, some political and military cooperation. Most of these RECs form the "pillars" of AEC, many of which also have an overlap in some of their member states. Due to this high proportion of overlap it is likely that some states with several memberships will eventually drop out of one or more RECs. Several of these pillars also contain subgroups with tighter customs and/or monetary unions of their own:

These pillars and their corresponding subgroups are as follows:

West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ)

Joined later:

Joined later:

Joined later:

UEMOA-97: UEMOA state from 1997
WAMZ-00: WAMZ state from 2000
WAMZ-10: WAMZ state from 2010

Joined later:

Joined later:

Joined later:

SACU-90: SACU state from 1990

Joined later:

¹ The Arab Maghreb Union does not participate in the AEC so far, because of opposition by Morocco

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