The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, this year is commemorating its landmark 50th anniversary.
However, this year’s celebrations are somewhat muted. This is because over the past couple of years, ECOWAS has suffered key set backs that have brought its very credibility into question. These have happened on both the political and economic fronts.
To be sure, the political affronts that the sub regional body has suffered are the most worrying because they present the spectre of perhaps irreversible change to the very structure and composition of ECOWAS. This has occurred in the roll back of democratic rule by military coups in three key member states – Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger who have signed a joint defence pact and gone on to actually withdraw their membership of ECOWAS.
This situation has the potential to get worse rather than better. The unfortunate fact is that the quality of political governance across parts of West Africa appears to be declining as the memory of military intervention has faded from memory and this, combined with fiscal shortcomings have made for increasingly unsatisfied populaces, even as their respective military high commands look on with envy as political corruption enriches the political elite inordinately. ECOWAS leaders have failed to respond to the worst excesses among their ranks – most recently Togo – and the combination of their inadequate political credibility and declining fiscal fortunes is curbing their abilities to defend the vision of the sub regional vision with regards to democracy
The other wave or reversals are economic. Perhaps its biggest challenge in this regard actually comes from the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA, which has the potential to change the fortunes of the over 50 African countries that have signed up to join it. But by providing duty free imports and exports of goods originating from all member countries, as well as preferential terms of investment between members, this new initiative threatens the attractiveness of ECOWAS older, and largely successful version of a regional preferential trade regime, known as the ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Scheme (ETLS). Besides, the withdrawal of three countries from ECOWAS has made the scheme’s reach even smaller.
Secondly, the longest standing and most ambitious initiative – a common currency to be called the Eco – is still far from coming into being. None of the member countries have met all the convergence criteria for two successive years despite over two decades of trying. Besides this most ECOWAS members are already part of a sub regional common currency – the CFA franc – which is tied to the French franc, with that country’s central bank underwriting it to give it exchange rate stability that anglophone West African countries can only envy. This means they are not overly enthusiastic about transferring to a wider currency zone that may not get such stability.
To be sure, ECOWAS in its current form has a much better chance to resolve its economic challenges than its political ones, because the former requires less political commitment and guarantees retained political independence.
ECOWAS was never designed as a unified political grouping anyway. As its name suggests, its original objectives were economic. Recent reversals on the political front suggest that ECOWAS stays with its original calling. As an economic grouping, not a political one. This will help it avoid the recent political contentions that have afflicted the size of its membership, and at the same time will enable it concentrate on the economic integration that have proved far more successful and impactful.
