LAGOS, Nigeria, Apr 30 (IPS) – Half a century after ECOWAS promised peace and prosperity, three breakaway states are testing West African solidarity, sparking a possible commerce battle.
Until last-minute diplomatic efforts can save the day, the Financial Neighborhood of West African States (ECOWAS) seems to be set to mark its fiftieth anniversary subsequent month not solely three member states quick but additionally going through the onset of a commerce battle that threatens to undo its decades-long efforts at attaining regional integration and free commerce.
Since July 2023, the 15-member regional bloc based in 1975 has been gripped by a disaster of legitimacy over its stance on the wave of army coups within the area. Between 2020 and 2023, Mali (2020 and 2021), Burkina Faso (2022) and most not too long ago Niger (2023) skilled a collection of coups that noticed the overthrow of democratically elected governments and the seizure of energy by juntas.
The latter, buoyed by a wave of anti-Western sentiment sweeping the area, moved to finish decades-long army and financial alliances with former coloniser France in addition to the US, Germany and the EU, in favour of relations with Russia and China.
Nevertheless it was not till July 2023, when the Tchiani-led army junta seized energy in Niger, that the simmering discontent within the regional bloc metastasised right into a cut up and the confederation of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), a defence pact comprising the breakaway states of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, was shaped.
In direction of a commerce battle?
Since its emergence on the West African panorama, the AES has shortly morphed right into a substantive regional rival with an agenda for financial, financial, commerce and cultural integration. On 29 January, the AES international locations formally withdrew from ECOWAS after observing the obligatory one-year discover interval. The bloc now has its personal flag and passport, in addition to a central financial institution and forex.
Two weeks in the past, the AES slapped a 0.5 per cent import responsibility on all items from ECOWAS member states in a transfer that raises the prospect of a commerce battle. The tariff, which took impact instantly, applies to all items, excluding humanitarian support, getting into the three international locations.
This new coverage runs counter to ECOWAS’ intention beneath the Commerce Liberalization Scheme (ETLS) and funding coverage to proceed to make sure open borders and free motion of products between its members and the AES international locations regardless of their official exit from the bloc.
The brand new levy threatens to disrupt commerce flows and drive up meals costs throughout the area.
The AES has defended the levy as a method of elevating income to finance its actions. On condition that the AES international locations are cash-strapped and at present have minimal administrative capability to handle extra complicated insurance policies, it’s not stunning that they’ve resorted to this measure.
Import duties are a ‘stroke of the pen’ coverage, offering a faster strategy to increase income than long-term funding in increasing revenues by means of export markets and creating different areas of comparative benefit. On the similar time, nevertheless, they’ll additionally function a shortcut over a cliff.
Relying on how ECOWAS states reply, AES import duties threat scary countermeasures — one thing that may solely make an already dangerous scenario worse.
The brand new levy threatens to disrupt commerce flows and drive up meals costs throughout the area. However the influence might be far worse for the alliance, whose member states are among the many world’s poorest international locations. Being landlocked, the AES international locations are closely depending on imports by means of ports by way of their southern ECOWAS neighbours, primarily Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Senegal and Benin.
So, including this tariff will considerably enhance the value of imports, together with meals, for residents of AES member states. Nigeria, as an example, is Niger’s third-largest buying and selling companion after France and Mali. And in latest months, Niger has suffered frequent energy cuts and gasoline shortages because of dwindling provide from neighbouring Nigeria.
The AES levy additionally provides to the rising structural, logistical and political challenges that proceed to hinder the expansion of intra-African commerce and notably the realisation of the African Continental Free Commerce Space (AfCFTA), which got here into impact in 2021. For a continent of 1.3 billion folks, the AfCFTA is meant to be the world’s largest working free commerce space.
Sadly, this isn’t but the case. In keeping with figures from Commerce Information Monitor, the worth of intra-African commerce stood at $192.2 billion in 2023, representing simply 14.9 per cent of whole African commerce. Over the identical interval, the worldwide share of intra-African exports and imports additionally declined from 14.5 per cent in 2021 to 13.7 per cent in 2022.
Payback
Whether or not West Africa will get again on monitor with the AfCFTA will depend upon the potential for convincing the AES international locations to rejoin ECOWAS by July 2025, when the grace interval granted on the time of their exit in January in the end expires.
The AES international locations account for round 17 per cent of ECOWAS’ whole inhabitants of 446 million, greater than half of its whole land space of over 5 million km2 and about 7.7 per cent of its whole GDP. Their departure has thrown ECOWAS into its worst disaster in half a century.
The present trajectory of political polarisation and a possible tariff battle will solely result in the widespread smash of all.
Nonetheless, this was not an inevitable disaster. Somewhat, it was one which the regional bloc walked into with its eyes extensive open. As a result of all issues thought of, the cut up may be seen as payback for ECOWAS’ drift away from its founding pan-Africanist beliefs and the errors it made in its dealing with of the coup in Niger.
At its founding half a century in the past, ECOWAS expounded a imaginative and prescient of solidarity, collective self-reliance, non-aggression, and the upkeep of regional peace and stability. Over the a long time, nevertheless, not solely had the union failed to face true to those beliefs, however its hole defence of democracy whereas tolerating sit-tight despots resembling Togo’s Faure Gnassingbé in its rank had produced a disaster of legitimacy that robbed the regional physique of the ethical authority to implement self-discipline in instances of turmoil.
This disaster of legitimacy is at present being strengthened because the AES continues to make use of sovereign and anti-imperialist rhetoric to place itself as a worthy different. However the present trajectory of political polarisation and a possible tariff battle will solely result in the widespread smash of all. Therefore the pressing want for ECOWAS to keep away from giving in to provocation and as an alternative make use of diplomacy to resolve the challenges led to by the imposition of import duties by the AES.
It was the failure to take the diplomatic route that led to the deadlock within the first place. That is the lesson that ECOWAS should be taught because it begins to reimagine its position as a regional bloc for the subsequent half-century. Failing to take action might imply an additional erosion of the bloc’s affect and relevance over the approaching 50 years.
Zikora Ibeh is a researcher, columnist, podcaster and growth advocate with a ardour for social justice and gender fairness. She works to make a distinction in society by means of public coverage advocacy, motion analysis and media advocacy.
Supply: Worldwide Politics & Society, Brussels
IPS UN Bureau
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