ECOWAS Needs to Have a Face

The renewed case for stronger economic integration within ECOWAS.

In 2000, the launch of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) passport, which enables the free movement of people across West Africa, became one of ECOWAS’s first achievements towards larger integration amongst member nations. This action was meant to be the first of multiple changes towards creating a borderless West Africa, and harmonizing policies, shipping laws, through a single currency to create a monetary union. After the launch of the passport, the first element toward creating a customs union with a common external tariff was meant to be implemented by 2019, 19 years after the announcement in Bamako.  

This simple element underlies the role and effectiveness of ECOWAS. It is an organization with a weak secretariat that is only propped up by state-to-state relations. It is unable to achieve the goals it has set, and this has led to multiple challenges to its goal of creating a borderless West Africa.  

Politically, ECOWAS is yet to achieve significant integration. Over the last six months, three countries under military occupation (Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso) have threatened to pull out from the union due to poor management of the situation by its member states. Even before the rise of coups, countries like Benin, have gone out of the union to Rwanda to ask for military support as opposed to members in the region.  

Economically, ECOWAS member states—with notable exceptions—have been performing poorly. While there have been concerted efforts by individual economies to become more service-oriented, they are still resource dependent nations and have mostly faced limited growth. West African countries are seeing slower growth with exceptions in Senegal, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Niger and Benin. Countries like Nigeria and Ghana, who account for over two-thirds of ECOWAS’s GDP, have been facing significant currency crises. Both the naira and the cedi have lost over 30 per cent of their value, with Nigeria also battling inflation...

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