The Regional South-South Unit for Africa works closely with the five main subregional economic communities of Africa: the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), ECOWAS, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The key objective of these efforts is, to help these aforementioned institutions, through the African Union, to identify their needs for capacity-building in key areas as well as sources of this capacity (either inside or outside Africa) and then to facilitate the matching of capacities with needs.

To date, needs and capacities of the various institutions have been identified, with matching soon to follow.