OVERVIEW ON ECONOMIC COMMUNITY OF WEST AFRICAN STATE ON FOW24NEWS.COM

The Economic Community of West African States, also known as ECOWAS (French: Communauté économique des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest, CEDEAO; Portuguese: Comunidade Económica dos Estados da África Ocidental, CEDEAO), is a regional economic union of fifteen countries located in West Africa. Collectively, these countries comprise an area of 5,114,162 km² (1,974,589 sq mi), and in 2015 had an estimated population of over 349 million.

The union was established on 28 May 1975, with the signing of the Treaty of Lagos, with its stated mission to promote economic integration across the region. A revised version of the treaty was agreed and signed on 24 July 1993 in Cotonou. Considered one of the pillar regional blocs of the continent-wide African Economic Community (AEC), the states goal of ECOWAS is to achieve "collective self-sufficiency" for its member states by creating a single large trading bloc by building a full economic and trading union.
ECOWAS also serves as a peacekeeping force in the region, with member states occasionally sending joint military forces to intervene in the bloc's member countries at times of political instability and unrest. In recent years these included interventions in Ivory Coast in 2003, Liberia in 2003, Guinea-Bissau in 2012, Mali in 2013, and Gambia in 2017.^[5]^[6]
ECOWAS includes two sub-regional blocs:

The West African Economic and Monetary Union (also known by its French-language acronym UEMOA) is an organization of eight, mainly French-speaking, states within the ECOWAS which share a customs union and currency union. Established in 1994 and intended to counterbalance the dominance of English-speaking economies in the bloc (such as Nigeria and Ghana), members of UEMOA are mostly former territories of French West Africa. The currency they all use is the CFA franc, which is pegged to the euro.
The West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ), established in 2000, comprises six mainly English-speaking countries within ECOWAS which plan to work towards adopting their own common currency, the eco.

ECOWAS operates in three co-official languages—French, English, and Portuguese, and consists of two institutions to implement policies: the ECOWAS Commission and the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID), formerly known as the Fund for Cooperation until it was renamed in 2001. A few members of the organization have come and gone over the years. In 1976 Cape Verde joined ECOWAS, and in December 2000 Mauritania withdrew, having announced its intention to do so in December 1999.
In 2011, ECOWAS adopted its development blueprint for the next decade, Vision 2020, and, to accompany it, a Policy on Science and Technology (ECOPOST)

As of February 2017 ECOWAS has 15 member states, eight of these are French-speaking, five are English-speaking and two Portuguese-speaking. All current members joined the community as founding members in May 1975, except Cape Verde which joined in 1977. The only former member of ECOWAS is Arabic-speaking Mauritania, which was also one of the founding members in 1975 and decided to withdraw in December 2000.
Morocco officially requested to join ECOWAS in February 2017. The application was endorsed at the summit of heads of state in June 2017.
Statistics for population, nominal GDP and purchase price parity GDP listed below are taken from World Bank estimates for 2015, published in December 2016. Area data is taken from a 2012 report compiled by the United Nations Statistics Division.

Country	Area (km²)	Population (thousands)	GDP (nominal) (millions USD)	GDP (PPP) (millions intl.$)	Currency	Official language
Benin	114,763	10,880	8,291	22,377	CFA franc	French
Burkina Faso	272,967	18,106	10,678	30,708	CFA franc	French
Cape Verde	4,033	521	1,603	3,413	escudo	Portuguese
Gambia	11,295	1,991	939	3,344	dalasi	English
Ghana	238,533	27,410	37,543	115,409	cedi	English
Guinea	245,857	12,609	6,699	15,244	franc	French
Guinea-Bissau	36,125	1,844	1,057	2,685	CFA franc	Portuguese
Ivory Coast	322,463	22,702	31,759	79,766	CFA franc	French
Liberia	111,369	4,503	2,053	3,762	dollar	English
Mali	1,240,192	17,600	12,747	35,695	CFA franc	French
Niger	1,267,000	19,899	7,143	19,013	CFA franc	French
Nigeria	923,768	182,202	481,066	1,093,921	naira	English
Senegal	196,712	15,129	13,610	36,625	CFA franc	French
Sierra Leone	72,300	6,453	4,215	10,127	leone	English
Togo	56,785	7,305	4,088	10,667	CFA franc	French
ECOWAS Total	5,114,162	349,154	623,491	1,482,756	—	—

Structure

President of the Commissions

President	Country	In office
Inaugural holder Aboubakar Diaby Ouattara	Ivory Coast	January 1977 – 1985
Momodu Munu	Sierra Leone	1985–1989
Abass Bundu	Sierra Leone	1989–1993
Édouard Benjamin	Guinea	1993–1997
Lansana Kouyaté	Guinea	September 1997 – 31 January 2002
Mohammed Ibn Chambas	Ghana	1 February 2002 – 31 December 2007
Mohamed Ibn Chambas	Ghana	1 January 2007 – 18 February 2010
Victor Gbeho	Ghana	18 February 2010 – 1 March 2012
Kadré Désiré Ouedraogo	Burkina Faso	1 March 2012 – 4 June 2016
Marcel Alain de Souza	Benin	4 June 2016 – present

Chairpersons

Chairperson	Country	In office
Yakubu Gowon	Nigeria	28 May 1975 – 29 July 1975
Gnassingbé Eyadéma	Togo	29 July 1975 – 13 September 1977
Olusegun Obasanjo	Nigeria	13 September 1977 – 30 September 1979
Léopold Sédar Senghor	Senegal	30 September 1979 – 31 December 1980
Gnassingbé Eyadéma	Togo	1980–1981
Siaka Stevens	Sierra Leone	1981–1982
Mathieu Kérékou	Benin	1982–1983
Ahmed Sékou Touré	Guinea	1983–1984
Lansana Conté	Guinea	1984–1985
Muhammadu Buhari	Nigeria	1985 – 27 August 1985
Ibrahim Babangida	Nigeria	27 August 1985 – 1989
Dawda Jawara	Gambia	1989–1990
Blaise Compaoré	Burkina Faso	1990–1991
Dawda Jawara	Gambia	1991–1992
Abdou Diouf	Senegal	1992–1993
Nicéphore Soglo	Benin	1993–1994
Jerry Rawlings	Ghana	1994 – 27 July 1996
Sani Abacha	Nigeria	27 July 1996 – 8 June 1998
Abdulsalami Abubakar	Nigeria	9 June 1998 – 1999
Gnassingbé Eyadéma	Togo	1999 – 1999
Alpha Oumar Konaré	Mali	1999 – 21 December 2001
Abdoulaye Wade	Senegal	21 December 2001 – 31 January 2003
John Kufuor	Ghana	31 January 2003 – 19 January 2005
Mamadou Tandja	Niger	19 January 2005 – 19 January 2007
Blaise Compaoré	Burkina Faso	19 January 2007 – 19 December 2008
Umaru Musa Yar'Adua	Nigeria	19 December 2008 – 18 February 2010
Goodluck Jonathan	Nigeria	18 February 2010 – 17 February 2012
Alassane Ouattara	Ivory Coast	17 February 2012 – 17 February 2013
John Dramani Mahama	Ghana	17 February 2013 – 19 May 2015
Macky Sall	Senegal	19 May 2015 – 4 June 2016
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf	Liberia	4 June 2016 – 4 June 2017
Faure Gnassingbé	Togo	4 June 2017 – present

The ECOWAS nations assigned a non-aggression protocol in 1990 along with two earlier agreements in 1978 and 1981. They also signed a Protocol on Mutual Defence Assistance in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on 29 May 1981, that provided for the establishment of an Allied Armed Force of the Community.
The Community Parliament consists of 115 members, distributed based on the population of each member state.This body is headed by the Speaker of the Parliament, who is above the Secretary General.

Country	Parliament Seats
Benin	5
Burkina Faso	6
Cape Verde	5
Ivory Coast	7
Gambia	5
Ghana	8
Guinea	6
Guinea-Bissau	5
Liberia	5
Mali	6
Niger	6
Nigeria	35
Senegal	6
Sierra Leone	5
Togo	5

For the third time since its inception in 1975, ECOWAS is undergoing institutional reforms. The first was when it revised its treaty on 24 July 1993; the second was in 2007 when the Secretariat was transformed into a Commission. As of July 2013, ECOWAS now has six new departments (Human Resources Management; Education, Science and Culture; Energy and Mines; Telecommunications and IT; Industry and Private Sector Promotion. Finance and Administration to Sierra Leone has been decoupled, to give the incoming Ghana Commissioner the new portfolio of Administration and Conferences)

The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice was created by a protocol signed in 1991 and was later included in Article 6 of the Revised Treaty of the Community in 1993. However, the Court did not officially begin operations until the 1991 protocol came into effect on 5 November 1996. The jurisdiction of the court is outlined in Article 9 and Articles 76 of the Revised Treaty and allows rulings on disputes between states over interpretations of the Revised Treaty. It also provides the ECOWAS Council with advisory opinions on legal issues (Article 10). Like its companion courts the European Court of Human Rights and East African Court of Justice, it has jurisdiction to rule on fundamental human rights breaches.

ECOWAS nations organize a broad array of cultural and sports event under the auspices of the body, including the CEDEAO Cup in football, the 2012 ECOWAS Games and the Miss CEDEAO beauty pageant.

The West African Economic and Monetary Union (also known as UEMOA from its name in French, Union économique et monétaire ouest-africaine) is an organization of eight, mainly francophone West African states within the ECOWAS, that was dominated otherwise by anglophone heavyweights like Nigeria and Ghana.^[19] It was established to promote economic integration among countries that share the CFA franc as a common currency. UEMOA was created by a Treaty signed at Dakar, Senegal, on 10 January 1994, by the heads of state and governments of Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. On 2 May 1997, Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony, became the organization's eighth (and only non-Francophone) member state.
UEMOA is a customs union and currency union between the members of ECOWAS. Its objectives include the following:

Greater economic competitiveness, through open markets, in addition to the rationalisation and harmonisation of the legal environment
The convergence of macro-economic policies and indicators
The creation of a common market
The co-ordination of sectoral policies
The harmonisation of fiscal policies

Among its achievements, the UEMOA has successfully implemented macro-economic convergence criteria and an effective surveillance mechanism. It has adopted a customs union and common external tariff and has combined indirect taxation regulations, in addition to initiating regional structural and sectoral policies. A September 2002 IMF survey cited the UEMOA as "the furthest along the path toward integration" of all the regional groupings in Africa.
ECOWAS and UEMOA have developed a common plan of action on trade liberalisation and macroeconomic policy convergence. The organizations have also agreed on common rules of origin to enhance trade, and ECOWAS has agreed to adopt UEMOA's customs declaration forms and compensation mechanisms.

Benin (Founding Member)
Burkina Faso (Founding Member)
Ivory Coast (Founding Member)
Guinea-Bissau (Joined on 2 May 1997)
Mali (Founding Member)
Niger (Founding Member)
Senegal (Founding Member)
Togo (Founding Member)

Formed in 2000, the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) is a group of six countries within ECOWAS that plan to introduce a common currency called the Eco. The six member states of WAMZ are Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone who founded the organization together in 2000 and Liberia who joined on 16 February 2010. Apart from Guinea, which is Francophone, they are all English speaking countries. Along with Mauritania, Guinea opted out of the CFA franc currency shared by all other former French colonies in West and Central Africa.
The WAMZ attempts to establish a strong stable currency to rival the CFA franc, whose exchange rate is tied to that of the Euro and is guaranteed by the French Treasury. The eventual goal is for the CFA franc and Eco to merge, giving all of West and Central Africa a single, stable currency. The launch of the new currency is being developed by the West African Monetary Institute based in Accra, Ghana.