ABOUT ECOWAS

In the following entry you will be able to read all you need to know about ECOWAS itself, its characteristics, history, etc.

ECOWAS stands for Economic Community of West African States. As its name denotes, it is a community formed by some of the Western African States, specifically 15 states, which decided to collaborate in economy activities such as industry, communication, transportation or commerce between others. It is not just an economic institution; the members also share responsibilities concerning cultural and social issues.

The Community is formed by six institutions: ECOWAS Comission, Community of Court of Justice, Community of Parliament, ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development, West African Health Organization and The Inter-Govermental Action Group agains Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing in West Africa. Moreover, it has some specialized agencies such as the ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority, the ECOWAS Centre for Renowable Energy and Energy Efficiency or the West African Monetary Institution among others.

Their government structure comprises three arms of governance: Executive, Judiciary and Governmental. The leader of the organization is called Chairman of the Authority of Heads of State and Government, and automatically he or she becomes the Chairman of Council of Ministers. The Chairman is a one-year position which its main function is to preside over all ECOWAS meetings. The head of the Executive arm is the President of ECOWAS Commission, a position which can be occupied for only four years. The President has a Vice President and 13 Commissioners that help on the tasks.

ECOWAS is legislated by a Parliament headed by the Speaker of the Parliament. The Secretary General of the Parliament is the responsible of the administrative functions. Parliamentarians are chosen by national Parliaments to the Community Parliament for a period of four years. 

The judicial arm of the Community is the Community Court of Justice, headed by the President. Every Member State send to the Court judges from their Nacional Courts. Its functions are interpret and apply community laws, protocols and conventions.

Before the creation of ECOWAS the territory known as West Africa was formed by different lands emerged of the process of decolonization. Even though they use the official languages of the institution – French, Portuguese and English – there are plenty of native cross-countries languages that still alive in the region.

When the colonization process had not happened, in the regions of Africa huge kingdoms were spread all over the territory, kingdoms with a common culture and social settings. The process of colonization and decolonization created fake boundaries to divide the territory, thus it was easier for the European powers to share the lands.

Although a lot of time has passed, the ancient cultures and the essence of the empires and what they represented still alive. This is why the main aim of ECOWAS is the integration, in all senses, economic, cultural, social, etc. The target of combining politically and economically forces has always been recognised as a step forward in the desire to engender co-prosperity in the area.

Some examples of this aspiration of integrity appeared in 1945 with the creation of the common currency named CFA franc, this process did not enhance the African identity but integrate all the francophone colonies under the same currency.

Later, in 1964 the president of Liberia – William Tubman – proposed an economic union within the Western African countries, this led to an agreement on 1965 with 4 countries: Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Nevertheless, it was not since 1972 that the project started shaping, when the Nigerian head of state Gen Yakubu Gowon and his Togolese counterpart Gnassingbe Eyadema toured the region in support of the integration idea. As a consequence of these the Treaty of Lagos took place and, in 1975, the Economic Community Of Western African States was created.

Currently, it has its base in Nigeria since 2007, from where they are still trying to implement different programmes which have the purpose of achieve full integration. For the moment, the members of the association have the right of free movement as well as access to education and health attention.

Regarding the membership the states which form part of it, obviously, must be located geographically in the West of Africa. Since it is a relatively young institution the member states have been almost the same since its birth.

DATE	COUNTRY
1975	Entrance of: Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, and Burkina Faso.
1977	Entrance of: Cape Verde
2002	Withdrawal of: Mauritania

If we take a look to the numbers that represent the ECOWAS worldwide we can notice the following:

	ECOWAS	Worldwide	ECOWAS representation
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)	560.194 USD billions ($)	75.648.448 USD bilions ($)	0.7%
Population	377.436.546 individuals	7.615.453.149 individuals	4.96%
Territory	5.114.162 km²	148.940.000 km²	3.43%

We can see an evident issue concerning the GDP in the West African region, since it is inside of what is known as third world. We can see a big unevenness between the share of population owned by the ECOWAS region and the share of the GDP they represent.

The member state with the highest GDP is Nigeria. This country is one of the most contributive to ECOWAS: Nigeria has always watched over the resolution of conflicts in West Africa and contributed with resources to reach the objectives of the organization. That is why this country has a great number of seats in the parliament (35) compared to other members. The second state member with more seats is Ivory Coast (7).





Using a bigger scope we can find out that Africa is a huge continent which has different economic regions, the one we have decided to analyze is ECOWAS but there are a few more, but the most important are:

• ECCAS (Economic Community of Central African States)
• EASFCOM (Eastern African Standby Force Community)
• SADC (Southern African Development Community)

To financiate the programmes of ECOWAS, ECOWAS Fund was created. But in 1999 this institution became the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) and entered in function in 2003.

The objectives of this institution is basically promote both private and public sector through financing of projects and programmes in transportation, health,energy or environment.Its mission is also to encourage the economic integration of West Africa at a regional and global level.

Overall, EBID aims at contributing to the economic development of West Africa through the financing of projects and programmes in particular, those related to transport, energy, telecommunications, industry, poverty alleviation, the environment and natural resources.

ECOWAS has also an economic partnership with the European Union called EPA (Economic Partnership Agreement). The main objective of this agreement is the free trade between West Africa and Europe in order to contribute to a sustainable development and the eradication of poverty in West Africa.
West Africa has also a Economic and Monetarian Union (UEMOA), but it only has eight member states: Benin, Bisseau Guinea, Burkina Fasso, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.


Since ECOWAS is an international recognized economic region we wanted to research a little bit about its influence and appearance in a global scale, and we thought the best way to understand its role in a global level was looking through the media.
What surprised us the most, and also gave us an understanding of the relevance of ECOWAS and the Third World in this mentioned scale, is that ECOWAS does not appear in the international media. In our opinion this is a consequence of the westernized world where we live.