The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has been in the news lately – mostly for the wrong reasons.
The bloc is facing its biggest crisis since it was formed in 1975. Three of its 15 countries – Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali – have broken away and formed an alternative grouping, the Alliance of Sahel States. While Ecowas held a meeting of its members’ heads of state and government in Abuja on 7 July, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali were holding a parallel meeting in Niamey, Niger’s capital. The three countries have vowed not to return to the Ecowas fold.
In the 2020 Malian coup d’état, Assimi Goïta and the National Committee for the Salvation of the People seized power in Mali after overthrowing the elected president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta.Goïta later led a second coup in 2021 which deposed the interim president Bah Ndaw, who had been nominated to lead a transitional military government.
Just months later, in the 2021 Guinean coup d’état the National Committee of Reconciliation and Development removed the elected Alpha Condé and installed Mamady Doumbouya as transitional president.
A faction of Burkina Faso’s military overthrew their existing military government in the September 2022 coup d’état, installing Ibrahim Traoré over Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who came to power in the January 2022 coup d’état which toppled the democratic government of President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré.
Burkina Faso’s Traore also accused foreign powers of seeking to exploit the countries. The three nations have regularly accused former colonial ruler France of meddling in ECOWAS, perhaps with some justification.
Most recently, the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland removed the elected government of Niger’s Mohamed Bazoum, installing Abdourahamane Tchiani and a new junta in the 2023 coup d’état.
What are the implications?
With Ecowas membership down from 15 to 12, there are important implications for free movement of goods and services across the region. A foretaste of what this could mean for the region was seen when border closures were imposed as part of sanctions against the military coup in Niger.
Choosing to walk away from the regional bloc also threw up questions of the impact this would have on the ability of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger citizens to move around freely within the region. The arrangement within Ecowas is that citizens can move between countries in the region without a visa, and have a prospective right of residence and setting up businesses.
The Economic Community of West African States has expressed disappointment over the lack of progress in reconciling with breakaway junta-led Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. ECOWAS commission President Oumar Touray says the region risks disintegration and worsening insecurity after the three Alliance of Sahel States signed a confederation treaty while noting the bloc would develop a contingency plan regarding all eventualities in relations with the Alliance of Sahel States.
West Africa’s divided regional bloc on the 7th July, 2024 asked Senegal’s President Basirou Diomaye Faye to have a dialogue with the three military junta-led member states to try to reunite the region whose stability has been under threat following their decision to leave the group in January.
The establishment of the Confederation of Sahel States holds significant implications for the West African region. The unified stance of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger challenges the traditional influence of ECOWAS and its external allies, particularly France. These countries seek to assert their sovereignty and reduce dependency on external powers by forming a confederation.
The confederation’s stated goal is to pool resources to build energy and communications infrastructure, establish a common market, implement a monetary union under proposed currency the Sahel, allow free movement of persons, enable industrialization, and invest in agriculture, mines and energy sectors, with the end goal of federalizing into a single sovereign state.
France and the rest of the international community should recognise realpolitik and cease to stand in their way and let them get on with it. Stability is the priority now.
