Alongside the EAC and the CEMAC (see Part 1), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is one of the best-known regional unions in sub-Saharan Africa. Created in 1975, it brought together15 member states in 2024 with a total of some 440 million inhabitants – including 170 million for Nigeria alone – and a total Gross Domestic Product of around 500 billion current USD. Three economic heavyweights belong to the Community: Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, respectively the 4th, 9th and 10th largest African economies by GDP in 2024. In this respect, ECOWAS also includes several countries with already diversified productive structures, even if the extractive industries, traditionally decisive in Nigeria, have an increasingly significant weight throughout the region. One of the keys to this positive development lies in the actions gradually implemented and largely successful to consolidate the Union : free movement of people, establishment of a Common External Tariff (CET) for imports ; promotion of regional transport and electricity infrastructure and active role in financing them by the Community Bank for Investment and Development (EBID), creation of the Union’s Parlaiment and several specialized agencies,…
This ambition to strengthen the zone has led ECOWAS to add an additional protocol to the original treaty aimed at supporting regional stability, and even to set up an interposition force to help resolve national crises. These political initiatives contributed in particular to ending the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the years 1990/2003. On the other hand, the economic and financial sanctions taken by ECOWAS against the four members affected by coups between 2020 and 2023, with the aim of returning to constitutional order within a limited timeframe, have failed. While the situation seems to have calmed down with Guinea, unsuccessful negotiations with Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger led these three countries to leave ECOWAS, a decision validated by the latter in early 2025. This serious crisis has cut the Regional Union by more than 50% of its surface area and by about 15% of its population and its overall GDP, and risks having weakened its cohesion and ambitions. Thus, a growing uncertainty seems to weigh on the major question of a common currency’ creation. Decisive for members who currently have their own currency to escape the trap of the frequent deterioration of it, such as Nigeria, this project was announced in 2019 as being almost materialized. Subsequently put on hold, due to Covid, its postponements deprive the CEDEO of a driving force.
It is the particular impact of its community projects that is a characteristic of the West African Monetary Union (WAMU, founded in 1962 by seven French-speaking countries), which became the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) in 1994. Actions were initially concentrated in the financial field : from the outset, a common central bank, governing a single currency at a fixed parity with the French franc; the creation in 1973 of the West African Development Bank (BOAD), which over the decades has become an essential institution for financing investments in the Union, especially for the States; a banking commission supervising all banks in the Union from 1989 onwards; foreign assets managed on a unitary basis; tight control of money issuance and inflation. To better react to the challenges posed by the devaluation of the CFA franc in 1994, the projects have been extended to other facets of the economy: the launch of the regional financial market in 1996, the creation of the Regional Stock Exchange in 1998, the implementation of the common external tariff in 2000, and the increased convergence of common policies and rules designed by the Commission of the Union and ratified by the members. … This framework has made WAEMU – extended in 1997 to Guinea Bissau – an increasingly unified and comprehensive economic and financial area, stimulating for all actors, both private and public. This context has undoubtedly favoured the rise in the average annual rate of regional GDP growth since 2012, even after the period of Afro-optimism and despite recent crises : this level of more than 5% and steadily improving over the past 13 years – it is currently expected to exceed 7% in 2025 – makes the Union one of the rare sub-Saharan exceptions.
However, the recent panorama highlights growing concerns in the area, as shown by a few examples. On the one hand, the necessary transformations, diversifications and modernizations of economic system+s and social infrastructures have been concentrated mainly in a few countries, widening inequalities between members. At the end of 2019, the Union also missed the opportunity to use its experience to carry out a new major project by quickly switching to another common currency, solid and better adapted, which would silence the old criticisms against the FCFA. At the political level, the WAEMU also suffers greatly, at least in its northern states, from the effects of jihadist terrorism. Finally, although an exemplary democratic transition took place in 2024 in Senegal, the cohesion of the area is subject to new risks : the slightest possible attraction on the three Sahelian members, now out of ECOWAS and united in the new Alliance of Sahel States; the proximity of a presidential election with an uncertain shape in Côte d’Ivoire.
These four examples illustrate the generality of regional integration approaches in sub-Saharan Africa and their role as a driving force for their member states in many aspects of their economic development. Despite their contributions, these groups have faced at least three converging obstacles in recent years. The first is the increasingly frequent priority given by States to the resolution of national problems and their internal treatment. Linked to the rise of impatience and frustration in the front of too slow improvements, this sovereignism places more limited trust in traditional regional alliances and their requirements. A second is the difficulty of existing unions to quickly identify and implement a new generation of major programs designed to transform the daily lives and prospects of businesses and individuals in an almost irreversible way, like those that had previously built freer and better protected regional spaces. A third is the scarcity of funding from major donors granted directly to the best-structured regional communities, which would have made it possible to carry out large-scale collective investments able to consolidate feelings of solidarity.
It is likely that these obstacles will remain decisive for a few years because of all the urgent issues arising in sub-Saharan countries, the reactions resulting from dissatisfaction accumulated in the past and the complexity of modifying the functioning of heavy institutions as well as the orientations of national governance. It is to be hoped, however, that the advantages of close and multifaced cooperation between nations carrying on similar struggles for their economic and social progress will reappear more and more essential. To achieve maximum efficiency while taking into account the weaknesses of the past, this joint work would benefit from respecting a few rules, such as the following three examples. Firstly, to continuously deepen the harmony of relationships and objectives between the member countries of a Union, if possible without discard what already exists, but by complying with the constraints imposed by this consensual approach. Secondly, to focus joint actions on programmes of indisputable priority for all the actors of member countries and of a quick and massive impact for the benefit of the greatest number, in order to obtain a graet mobilisation of energies. Finally, to succeed in convincing all donors, public and private, foreign and regional, to join these first decisive projects as partners, to test the effectiveness of the approach. Then, this regional sovereignty will show its usefulness and will make it possible to develop the strength of national sovereignty.
Paul Derreumaux
Article publié le 01/08/2025