By Cheikh Fall – The Third Path Africa
🕰️ I. Inheriting Contradictions: ECOWAS and the Ghost of CEAO
Before ECOWAS was founded in 1975, West Africa’s regional framework was defined by the Communauté Économique de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (CEAO), launched via the Treaty of Abidjan in 1973 by Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Upper Volta (Burkina Faso). Created to liberalize trade and redistribute customs revenues, CEAO aimed to support landlocked states.
Despite its ambition, deep asymmetries emerged. Coastal nations benefited disproportionately, and the bloc struggled with institutional limits, linguistic divides, and dependence on French monetary structures. By the early 1990s, CEAO dissolved, absorbed quietly into the broader ECOWAS experiment — born through the Treaty of Lagos, with Nigeria championing a bilingual, Pan-West African alternative.
Today, continental efforts such as harmonized corridor frameworks, regional trade infrastructure treaties, and digital integration strategies are reshaping Africa’s integration paradigm. ECOWAS must urgently align its treaties, investments, and institutions with these modern instruments — or risk being outpaced and rendered obsolete.
📉 II. A Mission Adrift: Fifty Years of Unfulfilled Integration
ECOWAS was founded to create a seamless regional economy. Yet, as it turns 50, the metrics tell a sobering story:
- Intra-regional trade remains under 15%, per UNCTAD — far below ASEAN’s 30% and the EU’s over 50%.
- Youth unemployment averages 25–35%, fueling migration and disaffection AfDB, 2023.
- Energy access remains low, with per capita consumption around 150 kWh, vs. Africa’s average of 500 kWh World Bank.
- Digital connectivity remains limited, especially in landlocked regions with rural penetration below 25%.
Meanwhile, signature projects like the African Atlantic Gas Pipeline struggle with underfunding, inconsistent political support, and lack of corridor alignment. These shortcomings impact job creation, industrialization, and regional resilience.
🚨 III. Crisis and Countermodel: The Rise of the AES
In January 2025, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger exited ECOWAS to form the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), citing ineffective sanctions and foreign alignment. The AES is more than a rebellion: it’s a rupture rooted in public disillusionment.
In Niger, ECOWAS sanctions included electricity cutoffs and asset freezes that disproportionately affected civilians. The backlash was swift. A 2025 Afrobarometer survey in Togo revealed that:
- 64% viewed the AES as “somewhat” or “very” justified
- 54% believed Togo would benefit from joining
The AES’s emphasis on sovereignty and mutual defense resonates with populations tired of foreign-aligned institutions. ECOWAS’s €2.26 billion Standby Force remains largely unfunded, while jihadist violence in the Sahel escalates.
ECOWAS’s inability to enforce democratic norms or deliver tangible economic progress has triggered a grassroots legitimacy crisis
💱 IV. Monetary Fragmentation: The Unfinished Eco
A central pillar of ECOWAS’s mission is economic integration — yet the monetary foundation remains fractured:
- Eight member states use the CFA franc, a currency still pegged to the euro and backed by French guarantees.
- The Eco currency, proposed in 2019, was meant to unify ECOWAS states and sever colonial monetary ties. Its rollout has been delayed repeatedly, now tentatively set for 2027 ECOWAS Commission.
- While WAEMU states reformed the CFA franc in 2019 — ending the requirement to deposit foreign reserves in the French Treasury — they maintained euro pegging and French convertibility assurances.
A truly sovereign Eco, governed by a regional central bank, would:
- Lower transaction costs
- Enhance monetary coordination
- Reduce currency risk across corridors
- Signal true economic emancipation
Monetary reform isn’t symbolic — it’s the lever for industrial growth, trade facilitation, and regional self-determination.
🛤 V. Reclaiming Relevance: The ECOWAS 2.0 Vision
A treaty-based redesign is essential. ECOWAS 2.0 must be structured around three strategic pillars, each aligned with AHACTI principles:
1. Infrastructure Integration
- Accelerate cross-border corridors: Lagos–Abidjan, Dakar–Bamako–Niamey
- Operationalize the African Atlantic Gas Pipeline and West African Power Pool via AfCFTA-aligned PPPs
- Build a regional digital identity system for seamless trade, finance, and mobility
- Adopt corridor harmonization standards per AHACTI’s spatial planning and governance model
2. Trade & Economic Sovereignty
- Eliminate customs duties and non-tariff barriers via a revitalized ETLS
- simplyExpand ECOTOUR to standardize services and cross-border entrepreneurship
- Fast-track a single trade bloc, deeply aligned with AfCFTA
- Launch the Eco currency with fiscal convergence and institutional independence
- Create a regional SME fund to empower local production and reduce dependency
3. Security Cooperation
- Engage the AES in diplomatic reintegration and cooperative regional defense
- Activate the €2.26B Standby Force for counterterrorism, mediation, and rapid deployment
- Strengthen maritime protection via the Combined Maritime Task Force
🏛 VI. Reform Case Studies: Lessons from Reinvention
Institutions worldwide have faced legitimacy crises — and recovered through structural reform:
- EU (post-Brexit): The modern EU evolved from the Communauté Économique Européenne (CEE), created in 1957 via the Treaty of Rome. It reformed into a cohesive Union through successive treaties, and after Brexit, it enhanced cohesion policy, launched the €750 billion NextGenerationEU recovery fund, and expanded digital sovereignty.
- ASEAN: Formed the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) to unify trade, labor mobility, and regional investment standards.
- COMESA: Streamlined customs for small traders through the Simplified Trade Regime (STR) and launched the Regional Payment and Settlement System (REPSS), bolstering financial integration.
- Netflix & IBM: Pivoted core missions — Netflix from DVD rentals to streaming; IBM from hardware to AI and cloud computing.
These examples show that adaptive institutions can tame criticism, rebuild trust, and deepen performance.
👥 VII. Reform Leadership: Bio and Afenyo-Markin’s Blueprint
President Julius Maada Bio, ECOWAS’s new chairman, assumed office amid rising fragmentation. At the AU Mid-Year Coordination Meeting (July 2025), he highlighted mediation efforts in Liberia and Guinea-Bissau but acknowledged persistent challenges with the AES.
Deputy Speaker Alexander Afenyo-Markin of Ghana calls for:
- An empowered ECOWAS Parliament, elected directly and endowed with budgetary autonomy
- A citizen-driven integration framework, with civic consultations and institutional transparency
- Strengthening the ECOWAS Court of Justice, giving it teeth to enforce democratic norms and treaty obligations
This leadership offers a pathway toward responsive, inclusive reform action.
🧭 VIII. Strategic Reform Agenda: Eight Pathways Forward
- Revise the Treaty of Lagos: Embed modern priorities — corridor logic, digital systems, and grassroots consultation
- Accelerate corridor infrastructure: Use AHACTI-aligned standards, joint investment protocols, and spatial equity benchmarks
- Unify trade frameworks: Expand ETLS, digitalize customs, and empower SME inclusion
- Empower Parliament and Court: Enshrine legislative authority, direct elections, and enforceable judgments
- Launch a civic engagement platform: ECOWAS feedback portals, media partnerships, and civic education programs
- Push Eco rollout: Establish a sovereign West African Central Bank and end CFA dependency
- Mainstream climate resilience: Use green corridors, solar investment, and create a regional climate fund
- Revamp the ECOWAS Commission: Strengthen structural organization, embed robust governance and oversight mechanisms, recruit highly skilled and experienced staff (not political appointees), and secure sustainable operational funding to carry out its mission effectively
These reforms align with AfCFTA, AHACTI, and broader continental visions — but must be rooted in treaty, governance, and execution.
🕊️ IX. Tribute: Honoring the Architects of West African Integration
As ECOWAS turns fifty, we honor the statesmen who founded both CEAO and ECOWAS, laying the foundation for Pan-West African cooperation:
| CEAO Founders | ECOWAS Founders |
| Félix Houphouët-Boigny (Côte d’Ivoire) Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal) Hamani Diori (Niger) Sangoulé Lamizana (Upper Volta / Burkina Faso) Moussa Traoré (Mali) Moctar Ould Daddah (Mauritania) Benin’s transitional leaders: Hubert Maga, Justin Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin, Émile Derlin Zinsou | General Yakubu Gowon (Nigeria) Gnassingbé Eyadéma (Togo) Luis Cabral (Guinea-Bissau) William R. Tolbert (Liberia) Mathieu Kérékou (Benin) Félix Houphouët-Boigny (Côte d’Ivoire) — continuing his leadership legacy Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal) — a visionary behind both CEAO and ECOWAS Heads of state from Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and other signatories of the Treaty of Lagos |
These leaders rose above colonial fault lines and linguistic divisions to imagine a region defined by cooperation, not competition. While the road was imperfect, their intent and initiative remain instructive — and today’s reformers carry that torch forward with renewed urgency. Their legacies are not just remembered — they demand continuation.Integration is not inherited; it is earned — through resolve, reinvention, and regional clarity.
🔚 X. The Road Ahead: From Nostalgia to Action
ECOWAS stands at a defining threshold: fifty years since its founding, and one step away from irrelevance. It cannot afford to mark this anniversary with ceremony alone. The rupture of the AES, the rising momentum of AfCFTA, and the transformative potential of continental frameworks like AHACTI have shifted the center of gravity in African integration.
This is no longer a question of ambition — it is a test of survival.
ECOWAS must not merely adapt; it must rebuild itself around sovereignty, infrastructure coherence, and the political will to align its treaty commitments with the realities of a rapidly evolving continent.
Sovereignty without integration is fragility. Integration without legitimacy is futility. ECOWAS 2.0 isn’t a slogan — it’s a blueprint. The time for recalibration is now.