Abstract
The age-long practice of the individual survival of nations have long given way to the emergent concept of integration and cooperation among states as an option to meeting the collective development needs of the cooperating states. Practice has shown over time that when states take comparative advantage of each other’s strength and weaknesses, it opens the space and engenders the potentials for specialization, development of the economies of scale and indeed reduces the cost of production. Consequently, it enhances the purchasing power of the citizenry. In recent times, there have been significant increases in the efforts of developing countries especially in Sub-Saharan Africa to achieve regional economic integration. The advent of the African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) have given new impetus to the global African and regional integration processes and has focused particular attention on the need to take decisive action to tackle the continent’s numerous problems through the instrument of the economic integration strategy. This paper appreciates the evolution of regional integration and analyses the rationale for economic integration in West Africa. It evaluates the challenges and prospects of integration in West Africa.
Highlights
Regional integration as a strategy of the collective economic survival of nations around the world has gained prominence in recent times
The paper shall further interrogate by way of comparative evaluation the impact of the current crisis in the European Union (EU) showing whether or not the west African experiment can be insulated from the vagaries of this crisis, since the later was fashioned along the lines of the former and bring to the fore what lessons that are to be learnt therefrom
It must be noted that the West African Sub-region Currently operates two currency regimes with the Francophone Countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote D’lvoire, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Niger, Togo and Senegal already formed into the common currency of the CFA Franc under the control of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) Central Bank (Saleh Nsouli, 2000) On the other hand are the countries of Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, which operate their individual national currencies
Summary
Regional integration as a strategy of the collective economic survival of nations around the world has gained prominence in recent times. It has given nations the options of cooperation and competition. The most attractive factor of integration is chronicled on the general principle of the creation of a common market where goods, services and capital are guaranteed freedom of movement unhindered within the integrated area. This article shall seek to evaluate and elicit those factors that have challenged the development of the ECOWAS experiment in attaining the desired goals of economic integration and further espouse the potential gains of moving on with the strategy as an antidote to the current unacceptable and intolerable economic conditions in the sub region. The paper shall further interrogate by way of comparative evaluation the impact of the current crisis in the EU showing whether or not the west African experiment can be insulated from the vagaries of this crisis, since the later was fashioned along the lines of the former and bring to the fore what lessons that are to be learnt therefrom
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