Remarkable changes have occurred in West Africa since the signing of the ECOWAS Treaty1 on 25 May 1975 just as the external environment has undergone considerable changes. This year’s celebration of the 25th anniversary of the community is an opportunity for reviewing the process of integration within the ECOWAS framework. This document is the Executive Secretariat’s contribution to the study of the achievements and prospects of ECOWAS.

The vision that the founding fathers had at the time of the creation of ECOWAS was one of collective self-sufficiency through the integration of the sixteen West African countries into an economic block with a single market organised around an economic and monetary union. This concern was born out of the realisation that the domestic markets of the member States taken individually were, as a result of their smallness, far from being competitive in a world environment marked by the existence of large trade blocks.

The overall objective of ECOWAS is to promote co-operation and integration in order to create an economic and monetary union for encouraging economic growth and development in West Africa. In order to do this, the following actions are envisaged:

the suppression of customs duties and equivalent taxes

the establishment of a common external tariff;

the harmonisation of economic and financial policies

the creation of a monetary zone.

.In spite of the difficulties, ECOWAS has chalked up remarkable progress in the area of free movement of persons; construction of regional (inter-State) roads, development of telecommunication links between the States and maintenance of peace and regional security. It is in the area of the integration of markets that the efforts of the Community have been frustrating. In fact, the trade liberalisation scheme is not yet operational as shown by the low level of the intraregional trade which is only 11% as compared to trade with third countries. Besides, the common ECOWAS external tariff has still not seen the light of day and the economic and financial policies have not been harmonised although a framework has been established for this.

Numerous problems have been encountered by ECOWAS in the enhancement of the process of regional integration of West Africa. Among the most important of these problems are: the political instability and bad governance that have plagued many of the countries; the weakness of the national economies and their insufficient diversification; the absence of reliable road, telecommunications and energy infrastructure; the insufficient political will exhibited by some member States; the bad economic policies in certain cases; the multiplicity of organisations for regional integration with the same objectives; the irregularity in the payment of financial contributions to the budgets of the institutions; the failure to involve the civil society, the private sector and mass movements in the process of integration; the defective nature of the integrational machinery in certain cases.

If, on the whole, the results of the integrational efforts made in West Africa by ECOWAS have, as already indicated, been clearly below expectations, there are, however, promising signs which indicate better prospects for the future. For example, it has been observed that recent events in the political and economic scenery of West Africa have gradually helped to remove the principal obstacles to integration. Among these are:

the advent of democracy in most ECOWAS countries, particularly, in Nigeria which is the dominant economy in West Africa;

the gradual withdrawal of the State from the sectors of productive activity, and the realisation that the private sector must be the mainspring of growth and economic integration;

the adoption of a strategy for accelerating the ECOWAS process of integration in order to create a single regional market based on trade liberalisation, to establish a common external tariff and to harmonise economic and financial policies;

the recognition of the relevance of a different approach in the march towards integration as found in the initiative of the non-UEMOA countries in creating a second monetary zone in West Africa which will merge up with the UEMOA zone to give rise to a single ECOWAS monetary zone in the year 2004;

the harmonisation of the programmes of ECOWAS and UEMOA in connection with the acceleration of the process of integration in West Africa;

the liberalisation of national markets and external trade that resulted from adjustment and reform programmes and which led to some amount of convergence in macroeconomic policies;

the common challenge that is thrown by the creation of trade blocks in other regions of the world and globalisation which risks marginalising Africa; this makes it necessary to accelerate the transition towards an autonomous and self-financed development within the framework of African integration;

the restructuring of the Executive Secretariat and ECOWAS Fund within the framework of the improvement of their operational procedures.

The document comprises two chapters and annexes. Chapter One deals with the achievements of ECOWAS and Chapter Two is on the prospects and the development framework of the Community. The annexes present the state of implementation of the ECOWAS integrational programme, country by country.