Regional cooperation refers to the political and institutional mechanisms that countries in a general geographical region devise to find and strengthen common interests as well as promoting their national interests,through mutual cooperation and dialogue.It is also an arrangement for enhancing cooperation through regional rules and institutions entered into by states of the same region.Regional integration could have as its objective political or economic goals or in some cases,a business initiative aimed at broader security and commercial purposes.

Regional organizations(ROs)are,in a sense,international organizations(IOs),as they incorporate international membership and encompass geopolitical entities that operationally transcend a single nation state.However,their membership is characterized by boundaries and demarcations characteristic to a defined and unique geography,such as continents,or geopolitics,such as economic blocs.They have been established to foster cooperation and political and economic integration or dialogue among states or entities within a restrictive geographical or geopolitical boundary.They both reflect common patterns of development and history that have been fostered since the end of World War II as well as the fragmentation inherent in globalization.Most ROs tend to work alongside well-established multilateral organizations such as the United Nations.While in many instances a regional organization is simply referred to as an international organization,in many others it makes sense to use the term regional organization to stress the more limited scope of a particular membership. qMQBhxukGBKXLRxIsTgrLf8PxJhfODbpS+6IxNcX/3h/cSbkw9pfyQv7J/IFk/z+