Economic Cooperation in West Africa

Abstract

HE PROGRESS made by the African continent since 1960 has been truly remarkable. After a long period of colonial rule Africa has emerged as an independent element on the political scene. Almost all of the African nations gained their political independence, and since about 1960 started to function as sovereign political entities. Regrettably, however, the progress that the African nations have accomplished in the 1960s has been largely limited to the area of politics. In the field of economics the past several years have witnessed, by and large, a conspicuous lack of advancement.' The 1960s, proclaimed by the United Nations Organization as a Decade of Development, has passed without any substantial tangible economic development in Africa.2 The reasons for this failure are numerous and have been amply discussed in a voluminous body of literature dealing with this subject. This study attempts to concentrate on only one aspect of this problem; namely on the question of economic cooperation in West Africa, and the relation between cooperation and It is fully understood by outside economic experts and by the African leaders that African nations in order to accelerate the rate of their economic progress will have to integrate their economies gradually.3 At the moment, Africa is divided into more than thirty independent political units, each of them operating as a sovereign state with its own administration, armed forces, monetary system, etc. Unfortunately, most of these countries have rather small populations; only three African countries (U.A.R., Ethiopia and Nigeria) have populations in excess of 20 million each.4 Several countries in West Africa have populations of about 2 or 3 million each. Moreover, the average income per capita in these countries is exceedingly low: in many cases it is less than $100 a year. Small population combined with low per capita income results in a very limited purchasing power within each nation, and the small size of the national markets prevents effective development of natural resources which would require large investments of capital. It also prevents industrial development. It is generally agreed that most industries in order to be efficient have to operate on a relatively large scale. In the African context, it means that they have to operate on markets that are larger than one nation. In order to stimulate the process of economic development and to provide a basis for industrial progress, what is required in Africa today is a comprehensive program of economic coopera-