South Africa’s Future Is Tied to Africa

African integration is not a fantasy. It is part of our vital national interest.

Photo by James Wiseman on Unsplash

People who advocate for an Africa-first foreign policy and greater African integration are often treated as hopeless romantics. This is because of the history of pan-Africanist thought and its association with leftist ideologues who often treated pan-Africanism as a magical fix for bad economics. Yet this obscures the fact that closer ties with Africa and African integration are of the most vital interest to South Africa.

First of all, South Africa has an Africa-first foreign policy, as per the 2011 White Paper titled Building a Better World: The Diplomacy of Ubuntu, which calls for an African-centred foreign policy. So our government does recognise this vital interest, even if we don’t always act on it. We are also involved in African integration initiatives at SADC, the Southern African Development Community, and continental levels.

The biggest problem with our approach has been the assumption that we can get African leaders to buy into our vision without being incentivised to do so. We need a combination of sticks and carrots to encourage our neighbours to follow this vision.

And why must it be South Africa driving this vision forward?

The answer to that question is that, in one sense, nothing is special about South Africa on the continent. We are just a country on the southern tip of the continent. Unlike Ghana, we didn’t gain our independence before others; we were among the last to gain it. Unlike Ethiopia, we can’t say we never lost our independence.

Yet South Africa has produced the greatest practical pan-Africanist in modern times in the form of Thabo Mbeki. It was through his efforts that we had reform of continental governance through the transformation of the old OAU into the AU, the launch of NEPAD, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, the African Parliament, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Peer Review Mechanism, etc. The institutions created through the efforts of the Thabo Mbeki administration have led to the growing influence of African institutions, culminating in the inclusion of the AU as part of the G20.

South Africa has also made a permanent UNSC, or UN Security Council, seat for Africa a centrepiece of its foreign policy. Our soldiers have bled for the continent through peace enforcement missions. SACU, the Southern African Customs Union, is responsible for most intra-African trade, and the very existence of SACU shows that continental integration is an enduring interest of South Africa, since SACU is the oldest existing customs union in the world, having endured through colonialism, apartheid, and now the constitutional order.

After Thabo Mbeki, I believe Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, South Africa’s former Minister of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, among many other roles, could be considered the second most important practical pan-Africanist of the modern era. Not only was she foreign minister under Thabo Mbeki when the reformed AU was launched, but her tenure as African Union Commission Chair from 2012 to 2017 also brought about the most important developments since the AU itself.

The centrepiece achievement of her term was Agenda 2063, the ambitious plan to integrate the continent and pursue infrastructure development, peace, and prosperity. The most important development to come from this plan has been AfCFTA, the African Continental Free Trade Area, the treaty aiming to create a continent-wide single market and customs union. The treaty itself is in force. The AU chose to split it up into separate protocols that would be negotiated separately to avoid disagreement in one area killing the whole thing.

We must thank President Paul Kagame for moving the process forward during Rwanda’s turn to chair the AU from 2018 to 2019. It is through his efforts that AfCFTA was signed by most African heads of state and has now been ratified. Moreover, Rwanda is one of only four African countries, not including South Africa, unfortunately, to sign and ratify the AU Protocol on the Free Movement of Persons. This is the part of Agenda 2063 that would eventually establish the African passport. We need 15 ratifications for the protocol to take effect.

And this focus on Africa is not some elite project divorced from the everyday realities of South Africans who are hostile to African immigration. There are polls showing that South Africans want to prioritise our relationships with our neighbours. According to the Brenthurst Foundation’s survey from April 2025, 80% of South Africans want closer ties with Africa, compared to 59% each for the EU, US, and China. Of these, 60% strongly agreed with closer ties with Africa, 46% with China, 43% with the EU, and 42% with the US.

Moreover, 81% agreed that South Africa should promote democracy on the continent. So South Africans want us to take a leadership role on the continent, with 80% agreeing that we should do more to assist peacekeeping on the continent. This can also be seen in the last election. The parties that are strongly opposed to African immigration could not even command 5% of the vote, with ActionSA and the Patriotic Alliance garnering 3.26% on the national ballot between them.

This is not to say immigration is not a serious issue. It is. But the supporters of closing our northern border often overestimate their real influence. The narrative that the EFF lost MKP votes due to immigration is overstated. The perception that former President Zuma was being persecuted by the state, the fact that the EFF and MKP were fishing from the same pond, and the regional element, given that the former President is from KZN and most of the MKP vote came from there, all mattered more.

Besides, MKP is not an anti-African integration party. They believe in enforcing immigration law according to their manifesto, but they also believe in greater African and SADC integration, according to the same document. In fact, they blame the immigration influx into SADC on the uneven development of the continent and call for more development funding for the continent from within the continent.

All this is to say that African integration is in our national interest and it is our top foreign policy goal. Voters recognise this, and our foreign policy reflects this. We must do more to support the work that has already been done, but that doesn’t mean the current approach is flawless. There is room to change our strategy to achieve this most important goal.

Mpiyakhe Dhlamini is a libertarian, writer, programmer and an Associate of the Free Market Foundation.