The Eco as a Catalyst for Economic Integration in West Africa

Abstract

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was established on 28th May, 1975 to unify the West African sub-region into one economic bloc that would eventually culminate into a currency union with time. In its bid to create this economic bloc, ECOWAS realized that the inexistence of a common currency stalled trade and free movement of persons. As a result, there has been an invigorated effort in the new millennium towards the achievement of a common currency; the ECO. This research is qualitative in nature and through thematic analysis, it was realized that in the first decade of this millennium, the ECO could not materialize due to the challenge in macroeconomic convergence, lack of political will, low intra trade levels amongst others. This led to a revision in approach in 2009. The findings also revealed that the new roadmap spurred on progress in areas such as the harmonization of statistics and data, economic policy coordination, payment systems and financial integration. Despite the revised roadmap, the pre-existing problems facing the ECO still subsists. In addition, the study highlighted colonial loyalty and monetary cooperation amongst Francophone Africa and France as threats to the realization of the ECO. The study concluded that cognizant of the above, ECOWAS would not meet its 2020 deadline and recommended that ECOWAS abolishes the fast track approaches to integration, foster political will, invest in value-added production to increase trade levels and concentrate on infrastructural development in the areas of transport and communication.