ECOWAS at 40
It is 40 years ago West African countries came together under one umbrella, ECOWAS, as a regional group of fifteen countries. Founded on 28 May 1975, with the signing of the Treaty of Lagos, its mission is to promote economic integration in the region. Considered one of the pillars of the African Economic Community, the organization was founded in order to achieve “collective self-sufficiency” for its member states by creating a single large trading bloc through an economic and trading union. It also serves as a peacekeeping force in the region.
The organization operates officially in three co-equal languagesFrench, English, and Portuguese. The ECOWAS consists of two institutions to implement policiesthe ECOWAS Commission and the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development, formerly known as the Fund for Cooperation until it was renamed in 2001. A few members of the organization have come and gone over the years. In 1976 Cape Verde joined ECOWAS, and in December 2000 Mauritania withdrew, having announced its intention to do so in December 1999. ECOWAS maintains its political relations so carefully to the extent that internal crises are managed. It was only with the unfortunate incident for the third time since its inception in 1975, ECOWAS is undergoing institutional reforms.
The first was when it revised its treaty on 24 July 1993; the second was in 2007, when the Secretariat was transformed into a Commission. But at same time with some development as of July 2013, ECOWAS now has six new departments (Human Resources Management; Education, Science and Culture; Energy and Mines; Telecommunications and IT; Industry and Private Sector Promotion. Finance and Administration to Sierra Leone has been decoupled, to give the incoming Ghana Commissioner the new portfolio of Administration and Conferences.
Another milestone is that of ECOWAS MONETARY POLICY over a period of time the commission has made several proposals to introduce a regional currency that will in other way ease some challenges of transaction with member states, particularly the regular small and large merchants who are often faced with the challenges.
Although that has not yielded any result so far, and no one can testify if it may become a reality, everyone in ECOWAS region is indeed aware of the long awaited dreams of the commission and perhaps only on paper records those of many of the commission dreams are so far achieved.
The most paramount of all these priorities in that region is security challenge which over decades has been militating against the socioeconomic development of member states.
The world today is witnessing a serious deluge of migrants, of which Africa and ECOWAS member states in particular, have the highest number. Abdulwahab Bawa, Abuja<wahabb2003@gmail.com>