Abstract
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a regional institution comprising of fifteen nations. It emerged on May 28 1975 in Lagos Nigeria. One of the reasons behind the establishment is to ensure the existence of a single currency in the region. The desire to integrate the region into one economic bloc that will lead to the circulation of a single currency has been in the agenda of various regional heads of states conferences, but it was discovered that colonial loyalty and the long existing monetary cooperation of Francophone nations with France was a strong impediment towards the proposal of such target likewise member states have not been able to meet the set of convergence criteria which led to delays and shift of dates in establishing a common currency. In addition, there is lack of political will and fear of domination among ECOWAS member states. To solve this problem, it was agreed in April 2000 in Accra Ghana, a two-fast track approach strategy should be adopted for the realization of single currency. For the first track, the non-West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) were to form a second monetary union called the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) by July 2005, which comprises mainly of Anglophone nations, with the second track being the subsequent merging of WAEMU and WAMZ to form a single currency union in the region. This work examined the political constrain behind the constant shifting of dates for ECOWAS single currency integration, those obstacles and other unforeseen circumstances that had contributed to the delay from the target dates shifting from 2003 to 2005, 2009, 2015 and 2020 at present. The research is qualitative in nature as such document analysis was adopted. The finding will suggest way for accelerating the plan action and ensure the newly target will not lapse as before.
Highlights
Following the trends towards globalization and the economies of scale derivable in largeness, numerous nations sharing common geographical location, language and culture found it imperative to come together as a regional body, aim at cooperating with one another in the areas of currency, security, trade, culture and sporting exchanges as well as free movement of citizens
In West African, one of such regional institution was formed known as Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) through a treaty of May 28, 1975 in Lagos Nigeria on behalf of fifteen nations namely: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo
Since the attainment of ECOWAS common currency depends on the success of the second monetary zone, the objective of this research work is to look at the political constrain regarding the issue of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) single currency (ECOWAS, 2014:14)
Summary
Received: 13 August 2018, Revised: 04 September 2018, Accepted: 21 September 2018. In-Text Citation: (Yusuf, Ahmad, & Wali, 2018) To Cite this Article: Yusuf, A. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(9), 537–546. Vol 8, No 9, September 2018, Pg. 537 - 546 http://hrmars.com/index.php/pages/detail/IJARBSS
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