The current trend toward creating regional economic blocs - despite the conclusion of the Uruguay Round and the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) - is changing the global economic environment and forcing a review of foreign trade policy strategies.

This is particularly true for the countries of southern Africa. It is not only the disappearance of the East-West confrontation, which had given some African countries room for maneuver in the past, that demands a repositioning. Above all, the change in the economically superior Republic of South Africa is changing the conditions of economic exchange in the region. The peaceful change at the Cape moved South Africa closer to its neighboring states without a consensual arrangement for shaping future economic relations.

Southern Africa faces a twofold challenge in terms of trade policy: it must move toward durable forms of regional cooperation and integration while preventing further decoupling from the global economy.

Against this background, African and European authors in this volume examine the conditions and prospects for regional integration in Southern Africa.