Conclusions The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Eastern Africa was created in 1996 to supersede the Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD) which was founded in 1986 to mitigate the effects of the recurring severe droughts and other natural disasters that resulted in widespread famine, ecological degradation and economic hardship in the region. Using the theory the paper argues that since the decisions and activities of IGAD are still being controlled by member states liberal inter-governmentalism remains the suitable framework for analysis. The IGAD community achieved success at a number of specific sectors, but still the regional integration efforts in the IGAD region have been weak due to many challenges confronting member countries.

2. 2
Introduction
IGAD is a Regional Economic
Community (REC) in Eastern Africa and
one of the eight building blocks of the
African Economic Community (AEC) of the
African Union (AU), (IAD,2016).
The Intergovernmental Authority on
Development (IGAD) in Eastern Africa was
created in 1996 to supersede the
Intergovernmental Authority on Drought
and Development (IGADD) which was
founded in 1986 to mitigate the effects of
the recurring severe droughts and other
natural disasters that resulted in widespread
famine, ecological degradation and
economic hardship in the region. Djibouti,
Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and
Uganda – took action through the United
Nations to establish the intergovernmental
body for development and drought control in
their region. Eritrea became the seventh
member after attaining independence in
1993 and in 2011 South Sudan joined IGAD
as the eighth member state (IGAD, 2016).
With the inauguration of IGAD,
great emphasis was given to the peaceful
settlement of regional conflicts as a means
for achieving sustainable development.
IGAD member states agreed: a) to take
effective collective measures to eliminate
threats to regional cooperation, peace, and
stability; b) to establish effective
mechanisms of consultation and cooperation
for the peaceful settlement of differences
and disputes; and c) to agree to deal with
disputes between member states within this
sub-regional mechanism before they are
referred to other regional or international
organizations (IGAD 1996). With this aim,
three priority areas were identified: conflict
prevention, management and humanitarian
affairs; infrastructure development and food
security; and the environment.
IGAD originated from regional
attempts to address environmental
challenges, such as drought. As it evolved, it
increasingly looked at peace and security
measures. It is a Regional economic block
created for regional economic cooperation
and integration, to create an open, unified,
regional economic space for the business
community with the vision to create a single
market open to competitive entry and well
integrated into the continental and global
economies. Among the IGAD‘s major areas
of focus is the Economic Cooperation and
Integration and Social Development
Division which has the following
programme areas: Trade, Tourism and
Industry; Infrastructure Development; and
Health and Social Development (IGAD,
2017)

3. 3
The political geography of the Horn
of Africa region comprises of Djibouti,
Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan,
Southern Sudan and Uganda. One typical
feature that distinguishes the Horn of Africa
from other sub regions of the continent is its
security stakes and challenges. The region
has a reputation as one of the most conflict-
affected areas in the world (Kessels, Durner
and Schwartz, 2016). This region has been
termed as one of Africa‘s hotspots sub
region and over the last four decades, this
area has been wracked by major conflicts in
Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea.
Within the past 30 years, the region has
‗witnessed wars between states, secessionist
movements, intra-state violent conflicts,
foreign interventions, terrorist attacks and
piracy, as well as violence after contested
elections‘ (Witt, 2014). The region
characterized by ‗the prevalence and
longevity of its multiple conflicts. It has
been the scene of two of Africa‘s longest
wars, the thirty year liberation struggle in
Eritrea and the equally protracted war
between North and South Sudan‘ (Healy,
2014). Moreover, the region still exhibited a
host of ‗unresolved issues-boundary
demarcation, citizenship, trade and resource
sharing have ensured that political tensions
and episodes of violent conflict continue to
characterize relations between the former
adversaries after separation‘. Horn of Africa
is markedly different from the other regions
of Africa because of ‗the level of conflict
and rivalries between and within the states‘
(Allehone, 2008).
IGAD as legitimacy provider for
intra-regional and extra-regional
action
IGAD and extra regional actors
‗have some agency and do influence norm
change and international legitimacy even
within existing power structures. They are
dependent on international validation from
the…United Nation Security Council, but
they are not predetermined subordinates‘
(Bergholm, 2010). International legitimacy
is the property of IGAD in the maintenance
of regional peace and security (Williams,
2013) as a result of the principle of
subsidiarity. In this relationship primacy is
given to IGAD as a legitimacy provider for
extra-regional actors on the common value
of regional peace and security provision.
The norms of subsidiarity which refers to a
principle of locating governance at the
lowest possible (Slaughter 2004) could
provide ‗an appropriate guideline for
establishing the order of precedence in
peacemaking on the region and thereby

4. 4
avoid the problem of organizational rivalry‘
(Nathan, 2016). The core issue of the
principle of subsidiarity ‗means that a
central authority should play a secondary
role, performing only those functions that
cannot be performed at a more local level‘.
As a regional organization, IGAD has a role
in providing an important legitimizing
function for the UN and other international
actors (MacFarlane, 2014).
Major achievements of IGAD
The IGAD community achieved
success at a number of specific sectors. With
regard to communications, the IGAD
Secretariat has helped member states
establish an effective information network
using modern information technology. The
Internet Connectivity Project among
member states aims at human resources
capacity building to improve communication
technology skills. It also aims to develop a
comprehensive IGAD strategy for
acquisition and use of information and
communication technology (ECA, 2004).
IGAD also initiated a household
energy project to help solve major energy
and environmental problems confronting the
region, assisted member states in
diversifying their energy sources and
promoting optimal energy use through the
transfer of appropriate energy-efficient
technologies, and trained decision-makers,
government officials and other stakeholders
(particularly women) on household energy
use. The region‘s achievement in the area of
trade logistics, transport and other trade
related infrastructures, however, is not
significant compared with other regional
economic communities. For instance the
level of intra-regional roads and railways
among the IGAD member states remain
absent and under developed if any. Market
access within IGAD is limited and so it is
with international markets (Ali & Edris,
2013).
IGAD from Regional Integration
Theoretical Perspective
Regional integration in general
describes the process of states entering into
a regional agreement, in order to achieve
specific, agreement-dependent goals through
enhancing regional cooperation. The Group
member adopts Liberal
Intergovernmentalism to analyze IGAD and
regional integration process in its member
countries. The theory was developed by
Andrew Moravcsik in 1993 to provide an
explanation for European integration
process. It is an improved version of
intergovernmentalist theory with a

5. 5
combination of neo-liberal and realist
perspectives (Cini and Perez, 2015).
According to Laursen (2008) Moravcsik
formulated the theory to explain the
European integration process based on the
combined liberal theory of national
preference formation and on
intergovernmental theory of interstate
bargaining to substantial outcome. And that
Moravcsik adopted three steps in his
analysis of integration viz; national
preference formation, interstate bargain and
institutional choice, stressing with regard to
the first, that economic interest are more
important than the geo-political (Lame:
2007). In a nutshell, the main thrust of this
theory ―is that member states are main
drivers of European integration process.
Member states have interests and it is based
on those interests that they decide whether
they will pursue a certain policy or not‖
(Lame: 2007).
Moravcsik brought some new
concepts to intergovernmentalist theory,
specifically in the course of examining the
relaunch of the EU. The main difference
from classical intergovernmentalist theory is
that supranational institutions can play a role
in regional integration processes, albeit in a
limited way. They can reinforce interstate
agreements as a basis for integration, and
nation-states can profit from them for the
purposes of domestic legitimation and the
pursuit of their domestic preferences.
Moravcsik strongly defends the
importance of two components of the
integration process: bargaining among
nation-states, and national preference
formation. In his view, the formation of
national preferences results from interaction
between society and government. As an
intergovernmentalist liberal, Moravcsik
accepted multi-causal explanations of the
phenomenon of regional integration, and
confirmed the postulates of both neo-realists
and neoliberals by accepting that states were
the main actors in the integration process,
but that the process was largely driven by
economic interests. In this perspective,
integration in Europe could be quickly
explained as a ‗series of rational choices
made by national leaders‘ (Moravcsik 1998),
which were previously restricted to their
domestic terrains alone.
As we can see from the objectives of
IGAD the integration among members of
IGAD countries could be quickly explained
by liberal intergovernmental theories,
because as a series of rational choices made
by national leaders that the process was
largely driven by peace and security, and
economic interests. For instance some of the

6. 6
objectives of IGAD mention as follow;
promote joint development strategies and
gradually harmonize macroeconomic
policies and programmers in the social,
technological and scientific fields.
Harmonize policies with regard to trade,
customs, transport, communications,
agriculture, and natural resources, and
promote free movement of goods, services
and people within the region. Create an
enabling environment for foreign, cross-
border and domestic trade and investments.
And, achieve regional food security and
encourage and assist efforts of Member
States to collectively combat drought and
other natural and man-made disasters and
their natural consequences.
Moravcsik (1998) displayed a liberal
vision of integration, and the primacy of
relationships between social groups. He used
liberal theory to empirically explain the rela-
tionship between state and society. For him,
liberal theory is the starting point for study-
ing international politics, aimed at
illuminating the interactions among social
groups such as employers, unions, political
parties, and churches, and their influence
over state decisions. In order to rectify the
theoretical failure to address these dynamics,
Moravcsik developed a state-centric
approach which he labelled ‗liberal
intergovernmentalism‘. First, he connected a
liberal theory of national preference
formation (i.e. ‗domestic politics‘) to an
intergovernmentalist analysis of inter-state
negotiations in a two-level game, and then
added a regime theory component. In this
approach, states, as rational decision-
makers, are prepared to relinquish aspects of
their sovereignty in order to increase the
efficiency of inter-state co-operation. They
accept this diminution of their sovereignty
because EU institutions ‗strengthen the
autonomy of national political leaders vis-à-
vis particularistic societal groups within
their domestic polity‘ (Moravcsik 1993).
In liberal intergovernmentalism,
there is a direct connection between
interdependence and the international
system. States are shaped not only by
domestic actors, but are also influenced and
constrained by the international system.
Moreover, each state makes an effort to
demonstrate its preferences externally. This
will eventually impact on the preferences of
other states, especially those that are less
powerful.
Using the theory the paper argues
that since the decisions and activities of
IGAD are still being controlled by member
states liberal intergovernmentalism remains
the suitable framework for analysis. Also

7. 7
since the founder of the theory has made the
framework ―a general one, which can be
applied to any kind of regional integration‖
(Lame, 2007).
Conclusions
The Intergovernmental Authority on
Development (IGAD) in Eastern Africa was
created in 1996 to supersede the
Intergovernmental Authority on Drought
and Development (IGADD) which was
founded in 1986 to mitigate the effects of
the recurring severe droughts and other
natural disasters that resulted in widespread
famine, ecological degradation and
economic hardship in the region. Using the
theory the paper argues that since the
decisions and activities of IGAD are still
being controlled by member states liberal
inter-governmentalism remains the suitable
framework for analysis. The IGAD
community achieved success at a number of
specific sectors, but still the regional
integration efforts in the IGAD region have
been weak due to many challenges
confronting member countries.
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