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A Special International Report
Prepared by
The Washington Times
Advertising Department - Published on September 30, 1999
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Sponsors (1) Federal Ministry of Finance
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Strength in numbers
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is an intergovernmental organization created by the heads of sixteen West African states and governments on May 28, 1975 in Lagos, Nigeria. Its main objective is to raise the living standard of its roughly 250 million people, by promoting cooperation and integration of members’ economies and accelerating the economic development of the entire region.
Since commencing operations 22 years ago, ECOWAS has been building West Africa into a unified market. Ultimately, it is moving toward a free trade area, with a network of regional infrastructures, harmonized economic policies and a set of regional instruments to ease cross-border transactions.
As a forum for West African integration, ECOWAS has been successful in bringing together regional leaders in annual meetings to exchange views and ideas on issues of mutual interest at the highest levels of government and the business community.
Last October heads of states and governments of ECOWAS met for their meeting at the organization’s headquarters in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. The newest face in the crowd was General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who had recently taken over from the late General Sani Abacha. Unexpectedly he announced that this would be his first and last ECOWAS summit: he would be handing over power to a civilian regime the following May. His statement was received with an avalanche of applause.
Abubakar pressured his peers into tackling major issues such as defining the status of ECOMOG in Liberia, settling the next chairmanship and working on an answer to the problems in Guinea-Bissau. He was praised for “his personal interest in the quest for strengthening ECOWAS” and “for the sound initiative he had taken recently to foster the democratization of his country.”
During the summit, ECOWAS members adopted a regional mechanism for the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts, and for peacekeeping and security. It was prepared by the secretariat on the directive of a special summit in Lome in December 1997. The directive called for the establishment of a Committee of Mediation and Security – the equivalent of a security council within the subregion.
“Learning from the past, we found a lot of countries are not too comfortable with the decision-making of ECOWAS in terms of peacekeeping and enforcement,” said Lansana Kouyate, the organization’s executive director. “After Liberia we wanted to make the decision-making more consensual. That is why we took the decision to establish a committee of mediation and security.”
Wise Men
The second organ, a committee of Wise Men, will be what Kouyate describes as an African “under the tree” consultation and prevention mechanism. An early warning system for regional conflict, in keeping with African tradition of consultation with elders, the committee will be made up of well-respected politicians, village elders and statesmen drawn not only from the subregion but elsewhere in Africa. Kouyate named South Africa’s Nelson Mandela as a potential candidate.
“The committee of Wise Men will be able to go to any West African country whenever there is flashpoint to inform the authorities – the head of state or the government – what is going on and to advise them how to stop it before it gets out of control,” Kouyate explained.
Prevention: Better than Cure
The ultimate goal of the observation committee, Kouyate said, is to ensure prevention. “We are always running after crises to stop them,” he explained. “So our rationale is that it is better to prevent.”
ECOWAS recently signed an agreement with the European Union for $2.5 million in support to set up its first four offices in Ouagadougou, Banjul, Cotonou and Monrovia.
The offices will report any potential hot spots to the Committee of Security and Mediation. The committee, which meets at the level of heads of state, ambassadors and ministers, will then assess the situation and determine the proper course of action. “They will either dispatch the committee of Wise Men or, since prevention is not a panacea and it may fail, decide whether to send peacekeeping or peace-enforcement forces,” Kouyate said.
The ECOMOG peacekeeping and peace-enforcement forces constitute the second element of the mechanism. “ECOMOG is considered by everyone as the only body that can manage peacekeeping – this has been agreed upon,” Kouyate said. “It will not be a permanent structure but a standby force in each country.” The force will have common training with the assistance of American Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI), to ensure it measures up to international standards. ACRI is a program that seeks to train countries in effective peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations. In the long term, the goal is to provide a brigade level headquarters that would provide command and control for the battalions. The U.S. would provide communications and non-lethal aid to facilitate communication between the countries’ forces.
ECOWAS’s mission is both to serve and to protect. Without an effective peace enforcement brief, its political functions would be inconsequential – a fact those involved with it know all too well. “Harmonizing policies in countries with unstable economic and political situations is futile,” Kouyate said. “We are confident without political stability we cannot have integration – that is why we are putting emphasis on stability.”
Tested in Action
The organization has a proven pedigree: it was the only subregional organization deeply involved in peacekeeping and settling political crisis in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau. Kouyate feels that Nigeria’s own transition to democracy has set a positive example to the rest of the region. By instituting a democracy that thrives and grows, it is demonstrating that stability is possible and profitable; promoting the very idea of stability to a region whose people have seen the power, albeit destructive, of divide and rule.
Despite the best intentions, no peacekeeping operation gets by without criticism. “Kosovo, Somalia, no matter where it is, there is criticism,” Kouyate said. He admitted that Nigeria, by its status as the biggest country in West Africa, incurs criticism from other states from time to time. He stressed, though, that any accusations of breaches of the code of conduct regarding peacekeeping would go straight to the Committee of Mediation, which should act accordingly. “But frankly speaking, what Nigeria has done in peacekeeping is commendable. Though we recorded some criticism it is peanuts when you look at what has been achieved,” Kouyate said proudly.
An issue ECOMOG members are confronting for the first time is collective responsibility for alleged abuses of its function. ACRI has been both teaching the people involved the formal procedures and definitions of the rights they are briefed to protect, as well as helping ECOMOG cultivate relationships with international human rights organizations to teach its peacekeepers how to deal with human rights issues.
A few months ago ECOMOG received complaints from Amnesty International regarding alleged human rights violations during its operations in Sierra Leone. “When we heard that,” Kouyate remembers, “we called a meeting of Chiefs of Defense Staff of all contributing countries and Sierra Leone, including ECOMOG’s commander. We decided unanimously that we should set up a team to investigate the allegations.” He stressed that tense and emotional situations, where peacekeeping troops may see or have knowledge of rebels committing war crimes, any such force is under immense pressure.
Leading by Example
Nigeria, Kouyate said, is in a better moral position to be prominent in ECOWAS than it was before democracy. “It is a big omen for ECOWAS, and is the reason why we have initiated our ‘prevention of conflict’ mechanism, now adopted by the heads of state.”
An organization such as ECOWAS needs two main objectives: first, the body of its mission. The group has taken as its responsibility projects to build or modernize roads, electricity generation, members’ energy industries and agriculture. Second, its soul: the harmonization of national policies across its membership.
So far ECOWAS’s project base is thriving. It is creating more than 9,700 kilometers of roads from Nigeria to Mauritania, known as the transcoastal highway, and another network from Senegal up to the border with Chad, now known as the ‘trans-sahalian roads.’ It is working on a telecommunications project to facilitate communications between member countries. ECOWAS is also the principal shareholder in Ecobank, a private sector-generated initiative that is now one of the most promising banks in West Africa.
But harmony is a different challenge altogether. “What ECOWAS has to achieve, and what will be our main 21st-century focus, is to succeed in harmonizing policies,” Kouyate said. “It is fundamental that the sixteen-member states enforce the same standards in terms of economic and financial policies and monitoring. All these will need a high level of harmonization, which will be my focus during the next year.”
Freedom of Movement
One aspect of such harmonization is the breaking down of legal barriers between member states. Almost since the organization’s inception, visa requirements have been abolished and free passage between most states has been possible. “Our greatest achievement. Has been the ECOWAS travel document,” Kouyate said. “It ensures genuinely free movement of people: I hope the U.S. will recognize it one day.” Out of 16 member nations, more than 10 have already issued the documents.
Trade is doing better than the individual in freedom of movement. Businesses within ECOWAS can export from one member country to another tax-free, provided that they first submit a list to the organization’s secretariat to confirm that the product involved conforms to standards.
Freedom of trade causes problems among the beneficiaries of the former system, however. “We are facing many problems with compensation,” Kouyate admitted, “because without compensating those who are losing revenue the mechanism cannot work properly.” Globalization can be cruel to those it takes by surprise. “Here in the subregion one doesn’t hear about corporations merging. They often have to move, because of contrary legislation. If West Africans are not able to merge, our companies will be reduced to consumers at the detriment of our development,” he said.
And what of ECOWAS’s future? As far as ECOMOG is concerned, Kouyate hopes it will cease to exist in the future. “I would like ECOMOG to disappear because of the disappearance of war,” he said. But for now, ECOMOG is essential. “We have seen it in Liberia … where we were able to stop the conflict. In Sierra Leone we are still working on it. The sacrifice is very heavy, but West African members are still committed.”
Kouyate believes that in the wider picture, ECOWAS will inevitably need greater U.S. involvement. “It can be pivotal in helping us to succeed in our integration, with assistance in capacity building,” he said. “It can help us in understanding how best to attract investors from the U.S.” Beyond that, control of corruption and drugs are important priorities, along with other measures that, although they seem fundamental to successful cooperation, are difficult when organized between 16 separate nations. And, of course, trade. U.S. aid can only go so far. “Aid without trade is nonsense,” Kouyate said. “Permanent aid without trade would just keep us in the state we are. Aid if necessary – trade forever.”
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Table of Contents (1) It's a new dawn over Nigeria |
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The success of regional integration in other parts of the world has prompted African governments to combine efforts to compete in an increasingly global economy.
The summit was a definitive success, attesting to both the strength of the institution and the commitment by its leaders to West African integration. Among its accomplishments was the launch of the ECOWAS Traveler's Check, signing of the moratorium on small arms, and the symbolic burning of 2.1 tons of cannabis in the secretariat’s parking lot. Special awards of merit were also presented, with one given to U.S. envoy Howard Jeter.
In keeping with this goal, ECOWAS plans to open an observation center in each of its member countries that will closely monitor events on the ground. Each office will be responsible for collecting economic, political, military and social information from a myriad of sources including the private sector, NGOs, civil society, the religious community and the government, and analyzing it to pre-empt the deterioration of a situation into conflict. “You cannot have prevention without information,” Kouyate explained.
Nigeria’s political transition was not a prerequisite for membership of ECOWAS back in 1975, nor was it one for Washington’s help with achieving its mission. Formed during the Cold War, at a time when Africa was rich in dictatorships, the West gladly embraced nations who were not allied with Moscow. Now democracy has become, if not a prerequisite, a criterion for membership in an organization frequently involved in condemning coup d’etats and imposing respect for democratic ideals.
Others, though, have not fully implemented such changes yet. Whereas air travel is generally a breeze for those carrying the new documents, travel on the new road network can be fraught with immigration problems. Between Lagos, Nigeria and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, a traveler on the highway can expect to encounter almost 100 checkpoints. “There are some obstacles but we are dealing with them,” said Kouyate.