In 2014, once I was working to launch the citizen assume tank WATHI, I wrote the next within the idea be aware I proposed to dozens of pals within the current and way forward for West Africa:
‘West Africa is a really younger area. The proportion of the inhabitants aged underneath 25 in every nation of the area exceeds 60%. Demographic development in West Africa will stay robust within the medium time period. The prospects outlined by the area demographic projections entail daunting safety, financial and social challenges for nations whose states and economies are principally weak. These demographic tendencies, along with the area’s considerable pure assets and the weak spot of native manufacturing programs, are a few of the causes behind the renewed curiosity in African economies proven by previous and new dominant gamers within the international economic system. Nonetheless, if the passion relating to West Africa’s financial promise shouldn’t be tempered by an general acknowledgment of the safety and political threats the area is going through, the outcome will possible be additional disillusionment’.
One of many worst situations we may have imagined ten years in the past
Ten years after this analysis of the state of the area, the state of affairs in West Africa in 2024 appears grimly like one of many worst-case situations we may have imagined again then. I am amongst those that consider that we have to change the narrative about our a part of the world, about Africa normally. Nonetheless, the will to focus on the optimistic developments in lots of areas, the extraordinary potential of our younger individuals, mustn’t distract us from a dispassionate statement of the fact of the second. The one means we will deliver concerning the much-needed adjustments in political practices within the area is thru a candid statement of the state of affairs within the area.
West Africa is at present going through unprecedented stage of safety and political uncertainty. Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Nigeria are among the many 10 nations most affected by terrorism on the planet. This nonetheless is simply a partial reflection of the unfold of insecurity, the rivialization of violence and the general worrisome penalties on social cohesion and the bodily and psychological well being of hundreds of thousands of kids who’re rising up in a context of violence and with none instructional or emotional assist from their households.
In 4 nations present process transition following coups d’état (Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Niger), there isn’t a regional institutional framework to set limits on army rulers who don’t have any inside checks and balances. Nonetheless, the restrictions on political freedoms and freedom of expression by these regimes, in opposition to a backdrop of rising financial difficulties for the inhabitants, are starting to impress protests and strikes, regardless of the excessive dangers of repression and menace of imprisonment.
In another West African nations which might be formally democratic and run by civilians, checks and balances exist solely in idea, and in actuality, there’s little chance of political alternation. In lots of nations presidents have taken the initiative to revise or change the structure to evade time period restrict and stay in energy indefinitely. The current constitutional reform in Togo, a rustic that has not had a democratic transition for 57 years, offered one other surprising instance of a parody of democracy in West Africa. The content material of the nation’s supreme regulation, which abolishes presidential elections by common suffrage, was not made public till after its enactment. And even within the few nations which might be usually held up as examples of political alternation by credible elections, with the attainable exception of Cabo Verde, the final notion held by residents is that assets and financial alternatives are monopolised by small circles of family members, pals and political allies. Democracy and elections proceed to unbearably accommodate excessive ranges of corruption, mismanagement and embezzlement.
An unprecedented disaster in regional integration
The simultaneous announcement on 28 January 2024 by the governments in energy in Bamako, Ouagadougou and Niamey to depart ECOWAS opened up an unprecedented disaster within the means of regional integration in West Africa. We’ve all change into witness to the continued strained relationship between neighboring nations equivalent to Benin and Niger, a distressing waste of time and power at a second when communities proceed to be impoverished by restrictions on cross-border financial actions.
The subsequent few months can be decisive for the regional integration course of. The choice of Burkina, Mali and Niger to depart ECOWAS allow army leaders in these three nations to free themselves from ECOWAS supervision of transition and associated constraints. They have been additionally in a position to make this announcement as a result of they knew that the short-term political and financial price could be restricted. As a matter of truth, they didn’t withdraw from the West African Financial and Financial Union (WAEMU), which brings collectively eight nations that share a typical forex, the CFA franc (seven nations that have been as soon as colonies of France and have been joined by Guinea Bissau in 1997). Membership of WAEMU permits these nations to retain a lot of the advantages of regional integration inside this sub-area of ECOWAS. As well as, leaving WAEMU is tougher and requires prior preparations than exiting ECOWAS.
The political price of leaving ECOWAS was additionally restricted as a result of the army leaders have been conscious of the degraded picture of the regional organisation amongst a big a part of West African inhabitants, not solely within the Sahel. ECOWAS’ administration of the coup d’état in Niger dealt a blow to the regional group’s notion amongst West African public opinion. The political and symbolic impression provided an unhoped-for alternative for the army leaders to painting themselves because the victims of a plot by their very own regional organisation to launch a army intervention in one in every of its personal member states.
A regional organisation at all times displays the political will, capacities and dynamics of its member states
Many West Africans cut back ECOWAS to the Convention of Heads of State and Authorities, which takes choices on political and safety points at odd and extraordinary summits. All the opposite dimensions of integration which might be the topic of the each day work of the Fee, different our bodies and specialised businesses, are merely not identified or poorly identified.
The overwhelming majority of younger individuals in city and rural areas don’t have any exact information of the historical past of regional integration, of the key phases within the development of ECOWAS since 1975, of the advantages of regional integration for the individuals, of ECOWAS’s decisive diplomatic and army interventions in nations in armed battle within the Nineties and 2000s. Few residents of West African nations can point out the names and missions of ECOWAS’s two specialised businesses. Few are conscious of the existence and essential position of the Courtroom of Justice, which will be seized by any citizen of a member nation even earlier than home cures have been exhausted. This court docket is a superb instrument for the promotion and safety of human rights in West Africa. Nonetheless, it has persistently been undermined by the identical member states which created it and who usually don’t abide by its rulings. The area is due to this fact paying the value for what has not been accomplished by way of schooling, the inclusion of regional integration points in curricula and general communication on regional integration.
There may be a substantial amount of confusion between what’s the duty of the Member States and what’s that of ECOWAS. Many individuals are fiercely essential of ECOWAS as a result of they anticipate it to be an alternative to states, a way of liberating themselves from their weaknesses, their dysfunctions and generally the shortage of legitimacy of their leaders. It isn’t ECOWAS that chooses the Heads of State of the member nations, however the latter then kind the faculty of final political decision-makers of the organisation. That is true of all regional organisations worldwide. Regional organisations can not work miracles within the absence of impetus, robust will and capability for motion on the a part of the member nations, or not less than a core group of influential nations amongst them. A regional organisation at all times is dependent upon its member states, which may give or chorus from giving the organisation the means to behave and the liberty it must implement its integration agenda.
It should be acknowledged that some very unlucky choices have been taken by the ECOWAS Convention of Heads of State and Authorities in recent times. It is usually essential to recognise the structural shortcomings, whereas welcoming the various achievements of ECOWAS over the previous 49 years and the immensity of the bottom lined. If the document had been higher by way of regional infrastructure, for instance if ECOWAS had been in a position to lead and make sure the efficient implementation of a regional rail community programme, if the document had been higher by way of the harmonisation of sectoral insurance policies and the promotion of regional integration in schooling programs, the political price to every Member State of leaving the Neighborhood would have been a lot larger. And that rubicon would have been a lot more durable to cross even for authorities who’ve seized energy by drive.
What’s at stake is the West Africa we wish for our youngsters
Alongside discreet diplomatic efforts, a public marketing campaign is required to clarify why ECOWAS is an important, essential establishment for the way forward for West Africa. The ECOWAS Fee should converse on to the individuals. The organisation ought to clarify the raison d’être of the extra protocol on democracy and good governance. It must also clarify the reasoning behind the broadening over time of its missions and targets, past financial integration. Those that criticise ECOWAS for straying from its authentic financial mission, for violating the sovereignty of states by interfering in inside political points, are both ignoring the rational evolution of the organisation’s guidelines and rules in responding to armed conflicts and violent political crises, or are appearing in unhealthy religion. We should, nonetheless, settle for a debate with all these voices appearing in good religion or not. We have to clarify how the promotion of the rule of regulation within the area is not only a dream of westernised elites who’re out of contact with actuality, and the way it’s the solely method to shield all residents of West African nations from arbitrariness.
Greater than ever, West Africa wants a powerful ECOWAS that focuses on clear priorities. We’d like an ECOWAS that develops its capability for strategic pondering by capitalising on the area’s human assets, together with the diaspora. We’d like an ECOWAS that helps to guard the area from the possibly devastating penalties of battles for affect between powers on West African soil. As everyone knows, with out maybe realising the magnitude of the menace, this battle can also be being waged in our on-line world, the place opinions and certainties are spouted all day lengthy through social media, so as to suppress any hindsight, essential pondering or attachment to info in individuals’s minds.
We’d like an ECOWAS that provides younger individuals causes to dream. We have to create and preserve a need for integration. We additionally want the demographic, financial and army powerhouse of the area to behave as a driving drive. We’d like a dedicated Nigeria and a core of personalities in every of the nations within the area who’re genuinely dedicated to the mixing venture. Let me reiterate: no regional organisation exists with out its member nations and with out the social, political, financial and cultural forces that form the event of every of those nations.
What can be at stake within the coming months is the form and the kind of West African area we wish for our youth, our youngsters for many years to return. The selection earlier than us is that of constant perception in the potential for making West Africa a area of collective progress and freedom, the place basic rights are protected or resignation. The latter is undesirable as a result of it implies accepting that our area is deeply fragmented, that every nation turns into inward trying and focuses on what it perceives as its strictly nationwide pursuits. It could imply accepting the true and really excessive threat of a return, nearly all over the place, to autocratic regimes the place leaders are accountable to nobody. We’ve already skilled this previously in a majority of nations within the area and on the African continent. It was not a powerful success. Resignation is due to this fact not an possibility.
This text is a modified and expanded model of Gilles Yabi’s speech at a public occasion organised by the ECOWAS statement mission on the United Nations to mark the regional organisation’s forty ninth anniversary, New York, 7 June 2024.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of West Africa Assume Tank (WATHI).
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In regards to the writer:
Dr Olakounlé Gilles Yabi is the founder and CEO of the citizen assume tank WATHI, whose ambition is to nurture a everlasting, knowledgeable and constructive public debate on all points essential to the way forward for every West African nation and the area as a complete. He holds a doctorate in improvement economics and was a journalist with the weekly Jeune Afrique earlier than heading the West Africa venture of the Worldwide Disaster Group. Additionally a non-resident scholar on the Carnegie Endowment for Worldwide Peace, a US-based assume tank, he hosts the weekly column ‘Ça fait débat avec WATHI’ on Radio France Internationale (RFI).
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