Constructing Transnational Governance from the Regional Level: The Role of Regional Institutions in the Areas of Health and Migration

The aim of this essay is to discuss the characteristics and effects of regional governance initiatives that have allowed African and Latin American states to address pressing transnational issues in the fields of public health (epidemics/pandemics) and migration (displacement crises). Africa and Latin America are two developing regions that share a long-standing tradition of regional cooperation and limitations in terms of state capacity. This makes the cross-regional comparison relevant for understanding the drivers and impact of regional governance in the Global South. By analysing a set of initiatives in the two policy sectors, we illustrate how the regional level provides states and non-state actors with a crucial meso-space for addressing complex transnational policy challenges. This is particularly true considering the stalemate that global governance institutions are experiencing due to growing great power competition. We show that regional governance is not an alternative to global governance but a building block for formulating effective transnational governance solutions. In so doing, we contribute to the debate on the relationship between regional and global governance (i.e., the regional-global governance nexus) (Kacowicz, 2018).