The Financial Neighborhood of West African States (ECOWAS) – the brainchild of Common Yakubu Gowon of Nigeria and President Gnassingbé Eyadéma of Togo, is an intergovernmental organisation within the West African sub-region. On the 28 Might 1975, the Heads of State and Authorities of 15 West African international locations convened in Lagos, Nigeria, the place they signed the Treaty of Lagos establishing the Neighborhood. Headquartered in Abuja – Nigeria’s state capital, ECOWAS goals to advertise cooperation and the combination of West African international locations. As a sub-regional organisation, its establishments and specialised companies embody the Authority of Heads of State and Authorities, the Council of Ministers, the Neighborhood Parliament, the Fee (previously the Govt Secretariat until 2006), the Neighborhood Courtroom of Justice, ECOWAS Financial institution for Funding and Improvement (EBID), the West African Well being Group (WAHO), and the West African Energy Pool (WAPP). Because the Neighborhood celebrates its 50th anniversary, an evaluation of its standing, with a view to the long run, is pertinent.
ECOWAS which started with 15 founding members is presently a Neighborhood composed of 12 member states – 5 Anglophone international locations (Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, The Gambia), 5 Francophone international locations (Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Togo, Guinea), and two Lusophone international locations (Cabo Verde and Guinea Bissau). In 1977, former Portuguese colony, Cabo Verde joined ECOWAS, making it a Neighborhood of 16 members. Nevertheless, ECOWAS was again to being a 15-member state Neighborhood after Mauritania pulled out. In compliance with Article 91(1) of the ECOWAS Revised Treaty (1993), Mauritania formally notified ECOWAS of its membership withdrawal in December 1999 which took impact a yr later in December 2000.
Surprisingly, on 24 February 2017, the Kingdom of Morocco within the Maghreb area of North Africa utilized for ECOWAS membership, using on the again of its readmission into the African Union (AU) on 30 January. In 1984, Morocco unilaterally exited the AU’s predecessor – the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) over the continental physique’s recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). Although Article 2(2) of the ECOWAS Revised Treaty states that member states of the Neighborhood are those who ratify the treaty, an admission of Morocco will defeat the entire concept of ECOWAS as a Neighborhood composed of sovereign states geographically situated within the West African sub-region. Morocco’s membership utility was sui generis and required cautious consideration which is why ECOWAS in early June 2017 permitted Rabat’s utility in precept at its 51st Summit in Monrovia, Liberia. However, there have been objections in some quarters to a doable Morocco accession to the ECOWAS Revised Treaty, Femi Falana (SAN) citing that West Africa dangers being flooded with manufactured items from the European Union (EU), thus killing native industries and rendering many unemployed.
To have positioned ECOWAS at a threat of disintegration are French-speaking Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger within the Sahel area. On 28 January 2024, the army juntas of the three international locations introduced their exit from ECOWAS which took impact on 29 January 2025. Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger determined to depart the sub-regional organisation concurrently owing to sanctions imposed on their international locations, and in keeping with them, the Neighborhood which has come underneath the affect of international powers, not comply with the beliefs of the founding fathers and Pan-Africanism. The departure of the three shook the Neighborhood to its very basis. Nevertheless, ought to the trio select to rejoin the Neighborhood within the close to future, ECOWAS says its admission door stays open and can gladly welcome them again with open arms.
ECOWAS is among the best-performing Regional Financial Communities (RECs) within the African continent, in keeping with the 2021 African Integration Report – anchored on the African Multidimensional Regional Integration Index (AMRII). Within the report, ECOWAS and the East African Neighborhood (EAC) stood out with a formidable 100% and 96% rating respectively vis-à-vis free motion of individuals. Within the space of commerce integration, ECOWAS, EAC, and the Frequent Marketplace for Japanese and Southern Africa (COMESA), carried out effectively, every scoring above 75%. Once more, ECOWAS, COMESA, the Financial Neighborhood of Central African States (ECCAS), and the Southern African Improvement Neighborhood (SADC) had been all rated above 60% on environmental integration. Although ECOWAS was discovered wanting within the space of financial integration and monetary integration, ECOWAS and EAC outperformed different RECs on institutional and political integration.
Drawing from the above, ECOWAS has made important progress with respect to integration. Shaped in 1979, the ECOWAS Commerce Liberalisation Scheme (ETLS) is geared in the direction of free commerce by eradicating customs duties on items within the sub-region. In 2013, the Neighborhood took a step additional when it adopted a Frequent Exterior Tariff (CET) as a manner of strengthening its frequent market. Lengthy earlier than this, ECOWAS was supportive of the pan-African financial institution – Ecobank which was established in 1985. Following the adoption of the Protocol on Free Motion of Individuals, the Proper of Residence and Institution (1979), the various peoples within the sub-region can transfer freely and reside in a member state for a most of 90 days. Complementing that is the ECOWAS Journey Certificates. Totally different from member states’ nationwide passports which have ECOWAS boldly written on them, the ECOWAS Journey Certificates is the Neighborhood’s passport which was launched within the 2000s. The passport is a legitimate journey doc which may solely be used throughout the sub-region.
Traditionally, ECOWAS has a monitor report of peacekeeping missions which is one other notable achievement. Because the late Nineteen Seventies, ECOWAS has adopted three important protocols with respect to peace and safety, peacekeeping, battle prevention and backbone within the sub-region – the Protocol on Non-Aggression (1978), Protocol Regarding Mutual Help on Defence (1981), and the Protocol Regarding the Mechanism for Battle Prevention, Administration, Decision, Peacekeeping and Safety (1999). The safety structure of the Neighborhood started with the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) which was arrange in 1990. This Monitoring Group of ECOWAS was instrumental within the decision of the First Liberian Civil Conflict (1989-1997), and the Sierra Leone Civil Conflict (1991-2002). In the present day, the Neighborhood’s peace and safety system consists of the ECOWAS Warning and Response Community (ECOWARN), and the ECOWAS Standby Drive (ESF) which was activated in March 2025 as a counterterrorism measure within the sub-region.
What could be thought of is also infrastructure growth. To begin in 2026, the 1,028 kilometres Abidjan-Lagos Freeway Hall venture will join Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria. This transnational street community venture when accomplished will little doubt foster the financial integration of the 5 aforementioned international locations within the Neighborhood. ECOWAS’s new headquarters shall be accomplished by the Individuals’s Republic of China (PRC) which is deepening cooperation with the Neighborhood. On 14 March 2018, ECOWAS signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China for a grant of $31.6 million to construct the brand new headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria. When accomplished, ‘The Eye of West Africa’ will accommodate the rising variety of workers members, not like the outdated headquarters.
ECOWAS member states, individually or collectively, have been unable to stamp out insurgency and terrorism within the sub-region. Because the 2010s, Islamic militant teams such Boko Haram and the splinter group, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have been energetic within the Lake Chad area whereas Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), and the Islamic State within the Better Sahara (ISGS) primarily function within the Liptako-Gorma area that connects the landlocked international locations – Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Going by the World Terrorism Index (2024) information, the epicentre of terrorism has moved from the Center East and North Africa (MENA) to the Sahel area of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) – Burkina Faso being the nation extremely impacted by terrorism. Owing to insufficient help from ECOWAS in combating terrorism, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger created the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) on 16 September 2023.
Relating to maritime safety, ECOWAS is confronted with the issue of piracy. The Gulf of Guinea is a physique of water from off the shoreline of Senegal in West Africa to Angola in Central Africa. This waterway, which is strategic for vessels conveying oil to American and European markets, has change into a hotspot for piracy. To quash piracy in addition to armed theft towards ships and illicit maritime actions in West and Central Africa, the international locations in ECOWAS, ECCAS, and the Gulf of Guinea Fee (GGC) signed the Yaoundé Code of Conduct (2013). Regardless of commendable efforts with respect to sub-regional maritime technique, surveillance, info sharing, and coordination in addition to the patrolling of waters, maritime workouts, and personnel coaching in cooperation with the USA (US), France, India, the EU, and many others., piracy, armed theft at sea, kidnapping of crew members for ransom, oil theft, and unlawful fishing are but to be repressed within the maritime area of ECOWAS.
The Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance (2001) is a testomony to the dedication of ECOWAS to uphold liberal democracy and good governance within the sub-region the place the Republic of Ghana is arguably the beacon of democracy. Nevertheless, democratic values within the sub-region and in sub-Saharan Africa usually have been challenged by some incumbent presidents with the intention of staying in energy past the presidential two-term restrict norm as noticed in a number of Western democracies. That is significantly true in The Gambia the place Yahya Jammeh was president-elect for the third time in 2006 and for a fourth time period in workplace in 2011. Equally in Togo, Faure Gnassingbé – son of one of many founding fathers of ECOWAS, was elected president for a third time period in 2015 and a fourth time period in 2020. One other instance is Senegal the place in 2012 the constitutional courtroom permitted President Abdoulaye Wade to run for a 3rd time period.
Quick turning into an unpopular pattern in West Africa is democratic backsliding which led to the criticism of ECOWAS for failing to avert coup d’états and tackle unhealthy governance within the sub-region. Over the previous 5 years, there was a collection of coups in three Francophone international locations within the Sahel area – Mali (18 August 2020 and 24 Might 2021), Burkina Faso (24 January 2022 and 30 September 2022), and Niger (26 July 2023). The suspension and imposition of sanctions by ECOWAS on these international locations, and the specter of army motion as a final resort within the case of Niger have proved ineffective in compelling the army juntas to revive constitutional democracy anytime quickly. In Nigeria, in August 2024, there have been the #EndBadGovernance protests the place some protesters within the northern a part of the nation had been seen flying the Russian flag.
The much-talked-about affect of France over its former colonies in West Africa has been problematic vis-à-vis the financial integration of ECOWAS’s member states. Except Guinea which opted for independence via a referendum in 1958, all former French colonies within the sub-region turned newly unbiased states within the yr 1960. A lot as this was a welcome growth, Paris has by hook or by crook denied them full sovereignty within the post-colonial period. Within the final six many years, France has maintained its long-standing affect over its former colonies via Françafrique – which merely put is neo-colonialism. Up to now, France inked bilateral defence pacts with a number of French-speaking West African international locations that licensed its army presence, army intervention, and army bases on their soil which Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Côte d’Ivoire have both expelled French troops or introduced their withdrawal resulting in the closure and handing over of French army bases of their nation, lately. Economically, Paris has exploited minerals equivalent to uranium in Niger for its nuclear vitality sector. Moreover, the French Treasury which holds 50% of the international trade reserves of seven Francophone international locations (Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo) and one Lusophone nation (Guinea-Bissau) in West Africa has financial affect over them via the colonial foreign money – CFA Franc, which is pegged to the Euro.
Staying with the difficulty of foreign money, it has been on the want listing of ECOWAS to have a single foreign money for the Neighborhood, drawing inspiration from the Euro. Nevertheless, getting the foreign money off the bottom has been a Herculean job. ECOWAS deferred the introduction of the frequent foreign money to 2005, 2010, and 2014 and was unable to launch the foreign money in 2020 owing to the failure of member states to fulfill the convergence standards on inflation, finances deficit, exterior reserves, debt-to-GDP ratio, and many others. 2027 has change into the brand new goal date.
Not peculiar to ECOWAS is the worldwide problem of local weather change. In recent times, local weather change has induced the migration of nomadic herders searching for greener pastures for his or her cattle. Therefore, Fulani pastoralists have clashed with farmers in a number of communities whose farmlands aren’t solely trespassed however money crops consumed or destroyed by voracious cattle. This has been the case in northern Ghana and North-Central, South-West, and South-East of Nigeria, to say a couple of.
ECOWAS additionally faces a wave of transnational organised crime. The trafficking of cocaine within the West African sub-region, Guinea-Bissau as a transit nation particularly, has been a reputable concern of ECOWAS and certainly the United Nations Workplace on Medication and Crime (UNODC). Making the most of the Protocol on Free Motion of Individuals (1979) are human traffickers who throughout the sub-region recruit a number of unsuspecting minors and girls for pressured labour and prostitution. Following the ECOWAS Moratorium (1998), the ECOWAS Conference on Small Arms and Mild Weapons, their Ammunition, and different associated Supplies took impact on 14 June 2006. Underneath the conference, member states are obligated to curtail the proliferation and switch of SALWs to unauthorised non-state actors equivalent to terrorist teams, mercenaries, and insurgent teams. Efforts on this regard to date are unsatisfactory and the continual trafficking of SALWs has contributed to extremists and legal teams’ unabated violence within the sub-region.
Lastly, viral illness outbreak is among the most up-to-date challenges confronted by ECOWAS. In December 2013, the Ebola Viral Illness (EVD) broke out in Guinea and unfold throughout the sub-region, revealing the dearth of preparedness and lack of well being personnel within the Neighborhood. Because of the Ebola outbreak, the Well being Ministers of ECOWAS’s member states had an extraordinary assembly in Accra, Ghana in July 2014. By 2016 when the Ebola epidemic had been contained, it had claimed the lives of greater than 11,300 individuals primarily from essentially the most affected international locations – Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. This loss of life toll stays the very best because the illness broke out in Zaire (present-day Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)) in 1976. Whereas ECOWAS’s securitisation of Ebola can go as an achievement, the lethal virus stays a well being problem within the sub-region. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ebola virus emerged once more in Guinea on 14 February 2021.
Up to now, the myriad of challenges bedevilling ECOWAS have overshadowed its achievements. A lot because the sub-regional organisation is sure to make strides within the years forward. On prime of its lofty Imaginative and prescient 2050 it should brace for political, financial, safety, well being, cyber, and technological challenges. ECOWAS must take a reforming mindset, construct institutional capability, and deepen mutually useful cooperation with international powers such because the US, China, Russia, India, and Turkey in addition to different worldwide organisations. Equally vital is the unity and political will of member states. Lastly, and amidst all this modification, it should not lose sight of its major purpose which is to attain sub-regional cooperation and financial integration – which can seemingly be the principle yardstick employed in value determinations of the Neighborhood’s efficiency.
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