The challenge of good coordination between ECOWAS and sub-regional IGOs

According to the ECOWAS treaty (Article 2, Paragraph 1), ECOWAS will eventually be the only Regional Economic Community (REC) in West Africa. Meanwhile, it should coexist with several Inter-Governmental Organizations (see Box 8 below), without the necessity of their actions being coordinated. If this state of affairs is badly managed, it would favour cacophony in the conduct of integration actions within the West African sub-region. Each organization would certainly develop programmes, but the overall result would be a poorly designed and badly managed regional integration process, which would lead Member States to focus on their membership in one or other organization, according to their interests, and thereby reducing the community feeling of belonging. This would lead to the development of a scenario of an unfinished and incomplete integration.

Box 7: The complex institutional land scape of Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) in West Africa West Africa has a long tradition of establishing intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). Currently, this number exceeds thirty IGOs which are characterized by a great diversity in terms of areas of activity and geographical area covered.

With regard to the areas of intervention, these concern: agriculture and livestock, energy and water resources, transport and communications, financial cooperation, education and research, health and youth affairs. Among these IGOs, three are directly involved in economic or monetary integration. These are ECOWAS, WAEMU and the Mano River Union (MRU). It should however be noted that ECOWAS has a broader mandate as it includes, over and above the harmonization of socio-economic policies, the political dimension, of maintenance of peace and security and of promoting good governance and democracy in all member countries.

Each Member State of ECOWAS belongs to several other IGOs in zones that often overlap, with an average of 19 per Member State. This multi-membership in several organizations justifies the relevance of the debate on the comparative advantages of IGOs if they are not rationalized.

Source: Regional Document of ECOWAS Community Development Programme, Volume 1, ECOWAS Commission, 2014.

To prevent this scenario, ECOWAS has recently taken the initiative of drawing up a Protocol Agreement to establish the framework for consultation, cooperation and partnership between intergovernmental organizations in West Africa. The Protocol was initialled on 13 June 2013, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, between ECOWAS, WAEMU, the Liptako-Gourma Authority (LGA), the Permanent Interstates Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), the Niger Basin Authority (NBA) and the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD). Several other IGOs should join the movement in the coming years.

In Article 2 of the Protocol Agreement, it is stated that the Parties, by creating this framework for consultation, decide to promote between them cooperation and partnership, in a bid to strengthen the coordination, complementarity and effectiveness of their respective or common development and integration activities in West Africa.

The priority objectives of the signatory IGOs, as indicated in Article 3 of the Protocol, are as follows: (i) create synergies and complementarity among the Parties and to uphold the principle of subsidiarity; (Ii) make the best use of their human, financial and technical resources, (iii) coordinate their interventions in the process of regional integration and development in order to ensure efficiency.

In order to promote the implementation of the Protocol Agreement, an institutional mechanism was put in place comprising: the Supreme Council of Regional Integration (which brings together the leaders of the IGOs once a year), the Regional Integration Committee (IGO experts and meets twice a year) and the Permanent Secretariat (services provided by the ECOWAS-WAEMU Joint Technical Secretariat).

Areas of cooperation cover almost all sectors of integration. Cooperation may focus notably on the CDP, which is intended to serve as a framework for ensuring coherence in regional initiatives (see Box 10 below).

Box 8: Ensuring coherence in regional integration initiatives

The process of integration and regional development involves many actors (the State, IGOs, Non-State Actors, donors) as well as various organizational and legal frameworks in a heterogeneous space. Many policies, projects, commitments and obligations are juxtaposed or overlap, often creating inconsistencies that are harmful to the proper implementation of development strategies and to the effectiveness of actions to promote integration. The search for coherence in the actions is thus clearly an imperative for the region. It would reduce wastage of resources, institutional conflicts and contradictions, the dislocation of spaces, and finally would help to ensure gains in efficiency and time.

The concept of coherence has different connotations. It can thus be sought internally, externally, vertically or horizontally.

Internal coherence

ECOWAS is composed of institutions and specialized agencies with organizational structures and which implement various initiatives that may not necessarily be in a global framework that ensures coherence. Internally, within the ECOWAS Commission, convergence fields clearly exist between the two departments in charge of Industry and the Private Sector which are separate. The ECOWAS agricultural policy includes aspects of trade, industry, and health, as well as those of private sector development that must be managed in full coherence by the various directorates in charge of these issues. This intra-ECOWAS level of coherence is associated with a level of extra-ECOWAS regional coherence. This involves the relationship between ECOWAS and the thirty odd IGOs involved in the construction of regional integration.

Horizontal coherence

This is a component of internal coherence. Horizontal coherence helps to articulate and link the various regional sector policies to create a multiplier effect and mutual reinforcement between the sectors. It also helps to prevent potential sources of conflict and contradiction in the implementation of sectoral policies.

External coherence

Operating in a complex international environment, West Africa is subjected to external influences, both positive and negative, in the implementation of its development programmes and policies. In addition to the options and decisions at national and regional level, ECOWAS must also manage a set of economic and political commitments, sometimes binding, taken at the bilateral, African and multilateral level: NEPAD; EPA; WTO; AGOA; African Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA), MDGs; Paris Declaration for Aid Effectiveness; etc.

Vertical coherence

This coherence is one aspect of external coherence. The different commitments at the bilateral, African or multilateral levels create a certain verticality that must be taken into account in all regional policies seeking to build the foundations for growth, integration and development. This is so because a commitment taken at one level could turn out to create difficulties for the effective conduct of some projects. An example to illustrate this is the contradiction between national commitments to the WTO made by some States in the region and the implementation of the ECOWAS Common External Tariff (CET).

The CDP: a framework for ensuring the coherence of initiatives:

The mandate of the CDP is to propose medium and long term development programme. Although the CDP is initiated by the ECOWAS Commission, it is in line with an overall regional perspective involving all IGOs and actors in the region. The CDP therefore establishes coherence with existing programmes and those being formulated. This approach should be followed both in defining projects and programmes of the CDP as well as in the management and implementation mechanism.

Source: Regional Document of ECOWAS Community Development Programme, Volume 1, ECOWAS Commission, 2014.

WAEMU is, of all the IGOs in West Africa, the most complete model in terms of integration. Over time, ECOWAS and WAEMU have strengthened their cooperation ties. Thus, a formal consultation framework

(ECOWAS/WAEMU Inter-Institutional meetings) brings together the heads of the two Commissions every six months and a Joint Technical Secretariat (which meets twice a year) is coordinated by two Commissioners of both organizations. Similarly, the two institutions have made real efforts to bridge the gap between their actions, particularly with regard to macroeconomic policy convergence, statistics and trade liberalization, as well as to infrastructure and various sectoral policies. For NEPAD and the EPAs, the two organizations also speak with one voice, with a leadership role entrusted to ECOWAS.

Nevertheless, there is still a need for greater coordination of ECOWAS and WAEMU programmes and relationships with external partners, in order to avoid overlapping and duplication in the implementation of Community programmes.

There was also the need for deepening legal cooperation between ECOWAS and WAEMU, in bid to harmonize the regulatory framework (what can be called “integration of the integration”) and to improve the situation for Member States confronted with different rules, for example, for exporting within the zone, or trying to meet the convergence standards. A protocol was signed to this effect by officials of the two organizations in 2014.

The question of the place of WAEMU in the ECOWAS institutional architecture will arise sooner or later. And, given the achievements and progress made by WAEMU, it would certainly be feasible to consider, not an immediate disappearance of WAEMU, but its progressive absorption by ECOWAS (by making it a real specialized agency that would inspire Community projects, in certain aspects, and for which ECOWAS will set multi-year targets and programmes, in accordance with Article 80 of the Revised Treaty).

The same prospects could be traced for other Inter-Governmental Organizations (IGOs) which will be maintained after the indispensable rationalization process.