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The presence of many regional economic communities also spreadslimited resources thin, complicates the overall continental integrationprocess, and puts an enormous strain on governments’ ability tocope with diverse agendas and exigencies.Finding a solution to this problem is clearly not an easy one.Top of the list of challenges facing the RECs are the capacity constraintswithin their individual secretariats, which are seriously impedingthe implementation of their work programmes.A survey undertaken by ECA for the second edition of Assessing RegionalIntegration in Africa (ARIA II) reveals that most of the RECs are understaffedand also suffer from a high rate of staff turnover. The ECA surveyreports that the RECs experience a turnover of 0 – 3 years, impactingheavily on the human resource capacity needs. They also lack technicalexpertise. In particular, the ECA survey indicates that more than 55% ofthe RECs reported serious gaps in the areas of IT management, law andaccounts. Sectoral programmes such as agriculture, economics and politicalscience, which are prominent features in a majority of the RECs,are also seriously under-staffed. These shortages are having a seriousimpact on the implementation of their work programmes.These staffing constraints could also be linked to the resources constraints.There is a high likelihood that if their budgets were sufficient,most of the RECs would be in a position to deal with their technicalskills shortages. Clearly, the financial crunch faced by the RECs can beexplained by the failure of Member States to fully meet the financialneeds of the secretariats. Given the multiple memberships of manycountries in overlapping RECs, the ability of these States to meet theircontribution obligations is also limited.Moreover, the effectiveness and efficiency of the secretariats of theregional economic communities is hampered by the duplication ofprogrammes at the RECs level. The ECA survey observed that RECsare duplicating their efforts in programmes related to trade facilitationand trade and market integration. Surprisingly, the duplication ofprogrammes in trade and market integration is not translating into increasedintra-African trade.98 Part Two