Understanding the Economic Community of West African States Political traction with Africa’s oldest regional organisation (original) (raw)
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Synthesis Paper: Regional organisations in Africa - What Are the Political Economy Dynamics?
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his research is focused on better understanding, and promoting discussion of, the interests and incentives of the range of different actors who seek to cooperate and integrate around regional agendas and ambitions, including international partners. That means exploring the interaction of a range of actors and factors that shape domestic politics, and how they interact with regional, continental, and international relations. Recent years have seen a new wave of dynamism at the African Union. Two main areas stand out: Connecting markets and people – the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement and Free Movement of People Protocol, a highly ambitious project that seeks to alter the development trajectory of the entire continent by promoting trade within the continent, both agreements opened for signature at the same time. Institutional reforms of the AU – a range of proposals have emerged to address the issues raised by Kagame, in terms of internal functioning of the AUC, and its role in representing member states externally and the outreach of the Union to citizens. The synthesis note is comprises three summaries. This introductory summary sets the scene for two separate pages summarising the research on the above two areas of work.
ECDPM Briefing Note, 2017
Struggling to integrate in an intertwined region By Bruce Byiers* This background paper is part of a series on the Political Economy Dynamics of Regional Organisations (PEDRO) and builds on an earlier paper conducted under the Political Economy of Regional Integration in Africa (PERIA) project. It was prepared in March 2017. In line with ECDPM's mission to inform and facilitate EU-Africa policy dialogue, and financed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, BMZ, the studies analyse key policy areas of seventeen regional organisations in Sub-Saharan Africa. In doing so they address three broad questions: What is the political traction of the organisations around different policy areas? What are the key member state interests in the regional agenda? What are the areas with most future traction for regional organisations to promote cooperation and integration around specific areas? The studies aim to advance thinking on how regional policies play out in practice, and ways to promote politically feasible and adaptive approaches to regional cooperation and integration. Further information can be found at www.ecdpm.org/pedro.
2016
Why a political economy study of regional organisations in Africa? Regional cooperation and regional integration are deemed vital to tackle development challenges that cannot be solved at the national level. In Africa, many such challenges affect poor people's lives in areas ranging from human security and mobility to rural livelihoods, trade, infrastructure, food security, environment and climate change. Regional cooperation and integration have long been high on the agenda of African countries, regions and regional organisations to address these issues. Burgeoning regional policies, strategies and protocols have been matched by widening ambitions and mandates in most regional organisations, often supported by donor-financed expansions in budgets, staff and programmes. Yet policy-makers, member state representatives and non-state actors frequently express frustration with the gap between commitments and what takes place on the ground. The Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC), Nkosazana Zuma, herself has said: "I don't think Africa is short of policies. We have to implement, that is where the problem is". 1 The challenge is to understand the underlying political and economic factors that really drive and hinder progress on regional integration.
International Journal of Comparative Studies in International Relation and Development, 2022
This study presents a political economy analysis of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), focusing in particular on what drives and hampers this regional organisation in preventing and resolving conflicts in West Africa, and in promoting a regional approach to agriculture and food security. The report is part of a broader study that includes the African Union and four other Regional Economic Communities in Africa. Why a political economy study of ECOWAS? The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was established in 1975 with the formal aim of promoting economic cooperation between 15 countries with different historic trajectories (colonisation, language, and administrative cultures) yet sharing similar socioeconomic conditions. During the 1980s the regional body was confronted with a large number of political crises, ranging from civil war to various military or constitutional coups d'état. This forced ECOWAS to fully embrace the security agenda as a 'core business'. The region is widely recognised as a trailblazer, including for the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). Several crises have been effectively addressed through regional diplomacy and military intervention. Over the years, ECOWAS has sought to promote an ever-widening regional integration agenda through a wide variety of strategies, action plans and programmes. Initially the regional body functioned through a state-centric, top-down approach to promoting regional integration. From the 1990s onwards, there were deliberate attempts by ECOWAS to also spur regional dynamics 'from below' through close collaboration between institutional actors, civil society and business organisations. ECOWAS recently celebrated its 40 th Anniversary. In reviewing the track record of the organisation, most analyses concur that important achievements were obtained in different domains, including restoring peace, containing conflicts, dealing with rigged elections, facilitating the free movement of people or supporting infrastructure development (trans-coastal and trans-Sahelian roads). Yet there is also a broad recognition that the initial aspirations have not been met. Overall progress in the actual implementation of ECOWAS policies in core areas such as trade, economic and monetary cooperation, energy and social development has been limited. There are still many obstacles to the free circulation of people (such as the existence of numerous check points, arbitrary and discriminatory treatment of citizens of other countries, migration laws) and goods (including the non-application of the ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Scheme, illegal tariff barriers, and non-tariff barriers). Other urgent crises remain unaddressed. The Sahel is being increasingly destabilised by cross-border crime, drug trafficking, the Tuareg conflict, terrorism and the spread of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The envisaged transition in the Vision 2020 from an 'ECOWAS of States' to an 'ECOWAS of People' has still a long way to go, particularly in terms of delivering tangible outcomes for citizens. However, in assessing the performance of ECOWAS one cannot ignore the particularly harsh political, institutional and socioeconomic conditions in which the integration project had to be pursued. The region ranks particularly low regarding all human development indicators. Thirteen ECOWAS countries are classified in the low Human Development category and 60 per cent of the population is estimated to live on less than one dollar a day. This brings along major shortcomings in policy and institutional capacity across the board. ECOWAS Study http://ecdpm.org/peria/ecowas v This study of ECOWAS tries to provide insights that explain the implementation gap, as these may help inform, calibrate and target reforms as well as support efforts that are technically desirable and politically feasible. To do so, the study focuses on the key drivers and constraints that shape the ECOWAS agenda and influence implementation by analysing two policy areas: peace and security and food security (focusing on the agricultural sector and agro-food industries and trade). The study uses a political economy framework to answer two core questions: how do key actors and factors affect and shape the agenda setting of ECOWAS? And how do these different actors and factors influence what gets implemented and why? Key findings of the ECOWAS study ECOWAS was primarily created to promote economic cooperation within the region. To pursue this aim, it adopted at its inception an intergovernmental approach to governance, based on national sovereignty and non-interference in the affairs of its member states. The regional commitment at that time was essentially that member states would integrate the lofty ambitions of ECOWAS in planning and directing their national (economic) policies. It resulted in a system whereby decision-making power lies exclusively with the Authority of Heads of State and Government and the ECOWAS Secretariat is merely charged with the task of executing the decisions taken by it.
Regional integration in West Africa: Wasteful overlaps or necessary options?
ECDPM DIscussion Paper, 2022
This paper analyses the interests and incentives around two overlapping regional organisations in West Africa: ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States), which has fifteen members, and UEMOA (the West African Economic and Monetary Union), whose eight members are also ECOWAS members. We explore the interaction of the formal mandates and cooperation structures of the two organisations, looking at their history, legitimacy and member state interests, and focusing particularly on regional trade. While overlapping UEMOA-ECOWAS memberships have a history and a logic, they create practical difficulties, particularly in the case of promoting regional trade. UEMOA's greater apparent integration and longevity compared to ECOWAS partly explains why recorded trade flows seem more concentrated among UEMOA member states. At the same time, ECOWAS derives its legitimacy from its greater scope of membership, its peace and security role, and by being one of eight regional economic communities that is recognised by the African Union. Although the two organisations serve a different purpose, incompatibilities essentially arise from incorrect implementation of agreed ECOWAS policies. Even if efforts continue to harmonise trade procedures between ECOWAS and UEMOA, both bodies seem destined to co-exist. If member states and their firms selectively use UEMOA or ECOWAS rules for different purposes, policymakers and their external partners must take this as a starting point in their support-and not merely an anomaly.
Understanding the African Union How to become fit for purpose ?
2017
This background paper is part of a series on the Political Economy Dynamics of Regional Organisations (PEDRO) and builds on an earlier paper conducted under the Political Economy of Regional Integration in Africa (PERIA) project. It was prepared in March 2017. In line with ECDPM's mission to inform and facilitate EU-Africa policy dialogue, and financed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, BMZ, the studies analyse key policy areas of seventeen regional organisations in SubSaharan Africa. In doing so they address three broad questions: What is the political traction of the organisations around different policy areas? What are the key member state interests in the regional agenda? What are the areas with most future traction for regional organisations to promote cooperation and integration around specific areas? The studies aim to advance thinking on how regional policies play out in practice, and ways to promote politically feasible and adaptive approa...
2020
Regional integration effort in Africa dates back to the 1960s. It was a deliberate attempt by African leaders to raise the living conditions of African peoples. The felt need to rebase the economies and to respond to the growing post-independent pressures informed the creation of the defunct Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The dynamic nature of the international system; the fall of the Berlin Wall and the widespread democracy wave coupled with the growing issues that worsened the economic conditions of Western and Central African states have transformed the activities of both ECOWAS and ECCAS to include other non-economic spheres. However, the study observed that the institutional structures of ECOWAS and ECCAS are being impeded by the intergovernmental nature of these economic groupings. Also, the non-observance of protocols on trade relations, deteriorating infrastructural facilities, and continual manipulation of electoral processes in ECOWAS and ECCAS militate against the r...
Building regions or diffusing failure? Regional integration in West Africa and the EU model
Regional integration in Sub-Saharan Africa has drawn heavily from a one-sided interpretation of the European Union model of ‘integration from above’, especially in terms of institutional framework and of expectations about the evolution and gains of the integration process. The EU itself has encouraged the adoption of such a model, both by providing material resources and by influencing regional organizations through political dialogue. Yet, the transfer of norms and institutions to a very different social and economic context poses a series of problems that have been insufficiently acknowledged. This paper uses historical literature and field research conducted at the respective headquarters in Abuja and Ouagadougou to retrace the influence of the EU model of integration on the two major West African institutions, the Economic Community of the West African States (ECOWAS) and the Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine (UEMOA). Both direct and indirect pathways of EU influence can be detected. The paper argue that the logic of institutional mimicry followed by ECOWAS and UEMOA has led to pre-mature load bearing and exacerbated the ‘capability trap’ that these organizations are facing. However, it also contends, in contrast to pessimist views of African regionalism advanced by area specialists, that the two organizations are not irrelevant and might have a positive role to play. The crisis of the EU model provides opportunities for rethinking the West African model of regionalism, devising more original solutions adapted to the local context.