Since, by now, we all know how terrible a "United States of Africa" & single African currency could be, what can we make uniform & standardise across the continent?
• Rail & road: Maybe we could create a uniform set of road rules & railroad guages. Sure, some countries drive on the right but the same rules could apply just on different sides of the road. In South Africa, we have a K53 defensive driving rule set which I think is pretty advanced & wouldn't mind other good driving laws across the continent to be merged with it & maybe create a single driver's license & driver's license test made for all African drivers.
• Mail: I've already vlogged on this on YouTube so I'll just put the link to the video.
• Automotive industry: I can imagine Itouha of Burkina Faso, Innoson of Nigeria, Kiira of Uganda, Roam of Kenya & Kantanka of Ghana all uniting to make affordable electric motorcycles, cars, buses, trucks & even trains for Africa in a single electric vehicle manufacturing enterprise. Setting up factories, vehicle shops & vehicle service/repair centres all across the continent under one name. Rugged sodium-ion battery EVs for the continent. Solar panels or perovskites on top of buses, trucks & trains to reduce battery weight. We could have a single charging connector for all EVs & a single EV charging payment network across the continent. This could also create a unified automotive repair industry & more accessible or interchangeable car parts as everyone would be using the same EV platforms.
• Firearms & military industry: A uniform firearms & military industry for Africa may be the same as a uniform currency. It may be better if Africa has some regional military alliances but not the same weapons across the continent. If we have the same weapons & equipment across the continent it could be easy for other continents to figure our weapons out & create conditions that will be unfavourable to us & any weapons we have. There is also regional climates to consider; some equipment may not work as well in the desert as in tropical regions so it becomes illogical to use the same rifle for the entire continent - for example. But, I do believe African nations could trade in weapons & military equipment to create a small African military industry.
• Education: Education may be forced to differ because of religion, cultural practices & so on but a standardised education system across the continent may not be so bad. It could allow easier transfer of ideas & would allow easier use of African systems across the continent. But, this Pan-African education would need to be very advanced & constantly updated. Each nation could teach in the language of their choosing & translate knowledge from other African knowledge bases. This may even lead to databases of African knowledge & African knowledge systems we could share with the world. I imagine a standard school uniform, curriculum & timetable across the continent would benefit us more than disadvantage us. With each region tweaking the timetable based on what times are best for them.
• Air travel: Many African airlines are said to be struggling & failing. Maybe a standardised "African Airlines" or "Kwatu Airlines" could be better than many national & regional airlines. The AU could spearhead the talks & own an African Airlines concept. This could improve interconnectivity, range & air travel across the continent as well as earn the AU some much needed extra finances brought by such a project. A standardised airline for all of Africa could help in emergencies, airport infrastructure & airport runway maintenance.
• Electricity: I've been an advocate for renewable energy for a long time because once you put the infrastructure in place, you virtually have free electricity unlike coal, hydrogen & nuclear. Hydroelectric power whether it be a river or in the sea is the least reliable renewable energy because rivers dry up & the sea can be dangerously corrosive making maintenance near impossible. So looking at wind power potential & solar power potential across the continent, we could analyse which places have more wind than sunlight & vice versa, then use sodium-ion battery stacks, vertical-axis wind turbines & high-efficiency solar panels to create uninterrupted power supply. Again, this could be better standardised across the continent because power supply sometimes gets cheaper the bigger the area being serviced. Some may consider the very maintenance-intensive thorium nuclear reactors which are the next best option after wind & solar but they'd have to deal with the nuclear waste & radiation problem which wind & solar does not have.
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