1. ECOWAS BOOK
Beyond the Rhetoric of Regionalism:
ECOWAS and the Challenge of Deepening Institutional Change in West Africa
Introduction
Chapter One: Deepening Regionalism in a Global Environment
Chapter Two: The Challenge of Institutional Reform in ECOWAS
Chapter Three: The Security Challenge
Chapter Four: The Governance Challenge
Chapter Five: The Developmental Challenge
Chapter Six: An Integrated Agenda for Security & Economy in West Africa
Conclusion
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2. Addressing the Regional Character of Conflicts in West Africa:
Towards a Framework of Human Security in a Region in Transition1
By
J. ’Kayode Fayemi2
Introduction
Since the end of the cold war, the desirability of shifting from a state- and elite focused
view of security to one that places regions and individuals at the centre of the security
equation has gained wide acceptance in Africa, and indeed in many parts of the world.
While protecting the state and its citizens from external aggression remains high on the
agenda, the most serious threats facing countries on the African continent at the
beginning of the 21st century tend to be those that either derive from internal causes or
are trans-national and collective in nature. This broader conception that articulates
security in a manner that the individual, the group as well as the state may relate to its
fundamental objectives of promoting and ensuring the right to life and livelihood in an
uncertain world underscores the importance of cooperative security arrangement in
Africa. Yet, given the popularity of the trend in international security, cooperative
security deserves a more nuanced analysis, one that brings out regional dimensions and
common characteristics in order for it to be relevant to the security concerns of the
African continent.
This presentation attempts to address the regional dimension of conflicts in West Africa,
looking at nature of conflict in the sub-region, the record of Africa in the post cold war
decade, the context of regional cooperation, the challenges to regional security
arrangements, the prospects of cooperative security in West Africa and suggesting some
ideas for a research agenda on regionalism in the context of conflict and globalisation.
Understanding the Nature & Character of Conflict in West Africa
West Africa’s story has been one of reversal, stasis as well as progress in the last decade.
The sub-region has witnessed significant changes during this period. Peaceful alternation
of power in Benin, Senegal, Mali, Ghana, and Cape Verde, the emergence of
constitutional governments in Sierra Leone, Niger, and the Gambia and the formal exit
of the military from the political affairs of the region’s giant, Nigeria provide justification
for some cautious optimism.
In spite of the progress made on the civil and political rights front though, West Africa
remains one of the poorest regions in the world and one of the most susceptible to crisis
and violent conflict, placing a huge question mark on the sustainability of the region’s
electoral democracies. With the re-ignition of conflict in Liberia, continued instability in
Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone emerging from a decade of civil war with great uncertainty,
Guinea Bissau and Guinea hovering between coup d’etats and cold peace, not to mention
large numbers of refugees and internally displaced population creating a major
1
Being paper prepared for presentation at the Conference on Governance and Insecurity in West
Africa, at the Program of African Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, Chicago, USA,
November 13 – 15, 2003. Please do not quote without the author’s permission.
2
Director, Centre for Democracy & Development (Abuja & Lagos, Nigeria) kfayemi@cddnig.org
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3. humanitarian emergency in West Africa, it is clear that pro-forma democracies represented
by ‘free and fair’ elections will not be enough and that the most paramount tasks facing
the region now include finding sustainable solutions to the current violent conflicts in the
Greater Mano River Basin, stemming the ignition of potential conflicts by addressing
fundamental political, social and economic root causes of the regional crisis.
For example, in analysing the human security situation in West Africa, at least five rough
thematic categories and four geographic parameters can be identified, ranging from
progress to stasis, and in a few cases reversal, and requiring different responses from
development partners. It is possible to talk of:
1) States in the process of consolidating their democracy – Benin, Ghana, Mali,
Senegal;
2) States in various stages of transitions to democracy – Cape Verde, Nigeria,
Niger, Gambia, Burkina Faso;
3) States in conflict or emerging out of conflict – Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra
Leone;
4) States in relapse or remilitarisation – Guinea, Guinea Bissau
5) Authoritarian states – Togo & Mauritania
In geographic terms, the four sub-systems can be roughly categorised as:
• The Sahelian sub-system (land-locked states) – Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso &
Mauritania (left ECOWAS in 2001)
• The Coastal sub-system – Nigeria, Ghana, Togo & Benin
• The Sene-Gambian sub-system – Senegal, Gambia, Cape Verde & Guinea
Bissau; and,
• The Greater Mano River sub-system – Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Cote
d’Ivoire.
Without an exception, all the states continue to face various challenges to their human
security situation, and some of the central challenges they face include: poverty, weak
political and economic governance, education, youth crisis, small arms proliferation and
trafficking, manipulation of religion, citizenship and identity issues, gender,
environmental degradation, migration, health crisis, especially malaria, tuberculosis and
HIV/Aids pandemic.
To understand the causes and nature of violent conflicts in West Africa therefore, it is
important therefore to trace the historic roots and contemporary trajectories in a more
nuanced manner that acknowledges a mixture of factors, rather than dwelling on
simplistic interpretation of causes based on notions of ‘greed’, ‘grievance’, ‘poverty’, or
‘ethnicity’. The incontrovertible evidence is that West Africa’s conflicts share a common
backdrop of economic stagnation and faltering democratic rule that undermined state
capacity and legitimacy in the 1980s. Yet each conflict has followed its own trajectory
shaped by political and policy choices partly made by the ruling governments and partly
imposed by the international context.3
3
No conflict has graphically demonstrated this better than the recent Ivorien crisis. Being the hub of
economic activities in the WAEMU (UEMOA) regional system, the collapse of the Ivorien economy in
the wake of crisis severely undermined state capacity in the seven other member states of UEMOA.
Since many of them are landlocked(Mali, Burkina Faso & Niger) with almost total dependence on the
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4. Triggered by both external and internal factors, the crisis of hegemony and legitimacy of
the average African state found refuge in the attempt to seek a common response to the
problems at home. Whilst regionalism is not new in West Africa – given the
leadership’s commitment to it as a political project since the mid-1970s, a number of
factors seem to have promoted the virtues of regionalism amongst African leaders and
peoples in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The peculiar context of the 1990s, especially
in the context of the factors outlined below, definitely redefined the nature of both
politics and conflict in a number of ways with significant bearings on regionalism. Africa
witnessed in the period in review:
• Shifts in global and geo-political power relations, in particular the end of the cold
war and the retraction of the imperial security umbrella, allowed former client
regimes to be challenged in ways unimaginable in the past;
• The retreat of the superpowers placed greater prominence on the role of and
competition between regional powers in conflict and conflict management;
• Conflict parties (both governments and rebel groups) previously supported by
superpowers had to turn to new sources of funding, including the exploitation of
natural resources and criminal activity (drugs, etc) making them potentially less
amenable to external pressure;
• New particularistic forms of political consciousness and identity, often structured
around religion and ethnicity, replaced the extant ‘universalistic’ debates between
‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ that had underpinned the Cold War, reinforcing the
erosion of a sense of common citizenship fostered by state contraction and
popular disillusionment with politics;
• Erosion of the institutional capacity of the average African state, the most
profound aspect of which was the decomposition of the security apparatuses,
affecting the ability of the state to ensure the security of the state as well as that
of the community;
• Strengthening of regional collective mechanisms encouraged by the retreat of the
superpowers, with regionalism taking much firmer root, crowned recently by the
launch of the African Union and introduction of NEPAD. In this regard,
regional and sub-regional conflict management mechanisms have assisted the
development of autonomous capacity to handle local conflicts in spite of the
inherent challenges faced by these institutions. This has placed greater
prominence on continental responses and increased the role of and competition
between regional powers in conflict prevention and conflict management as
exemplified by ECOWAS, IGAD, SADC and EAC;
• African states were subjected to multiple sources of pressure that eroded their
sovereignty: from above, the cooption of crucial areas of policy initiative by the
IFIs and a variety of donor agencies: from below – the activation of civil society
and the increasing power and resources controlled by the non-governmental
sector
Ivorien ports, imports were hampered, exports severely delayed and the agricultural markets destroyed,
all with serious implication for regional economic activities, and eventually regional security.
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5. • Loss of centrality of the state as a consequence of contracting resources and
capacity to deliver essential services, with various implications for its ability to act
as the centre of social cohesion as well as for perceptions of citizenship;
• State militarism, which became the progenitor of the psychology of militarism,
loss of a culture of dialogue, implanting a culture of violence, and discouraging
peaceful conflict-resolution and process of change.
• The increasing availability and privatisation of the instruments of violence,
transforming the military balance between state and society. Massive
retrenchment and growing surplus of military assets globally, simultaneously with
a breakdown in supply-side and demand side controls on global arms markets
and (locally) recycling of decommissioned weaponry as most of the wars of the
1980s wound down.
• An increase in cross-border interventions, multi-lateral as well as unilateral,
and the rise of multinational armed coalitions, combining both regular and
irregular armed forces.
• The geo-strategic focus on international terrorism and its concomitant effect
on the tendency to broaden notions of security in Africa.
• New forms of violent national and trans-national crime.
Regionalism in Africa – A Balance Sheet
Given the context described above, while several African states are voluntarily embracing
regionalism as a deliberate strategy to promote desirable political and/or fiscal ends;
more frequently, however, regionalism has been foisted on other African states as part of
the imperatives of rebuilding or sustaining societies in the aftermath of the loss of
external security umbrellas.
While virtually every African state is involved in some sort of ‘regionalism’ in the post
cold war era, the question is how and how much, and whether, indeed the type of ‘regional
projects’ in question can be expected to gain wider currency and become ingrained in the
lived experiences of communities and constituencies in Africa.
To begin with, the nature and direction of regionalism is determined very much by
context already highlighted above. Regional initiatives as opposed to state projects are
taking place in a diversity of terrains, and reflects particular kinds of regimes and political
transitions -: consolidating democracies (Senegal and Botswana), post-conflict peace-
building scenarios (Sierra Leone, Mozambique, South Africa), transitions from military
rule (Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Benin) or single-party dispensations (Tanzania, Kenya, The
Seychelles, Cape Verde), conquest of the state (Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea), contested
transitions (Burundi, Rwanda, Cote d’Ivoire), and so forth. Further, within each of these
scenarios, sub-categories can be identified, limiting comparison and generalization.
What constitutes ‘regionalism’ thus differs very much from country to country in terms
of the following:
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6. • The political, security or financial imperatives to be addressed. Regionalism may be
embraced for a variety of reasons: post-conflict peace agreements or state re-
building; fiscal reform, changes in the strategic environment or in military
technology, attempts by regimes to restructure their security architectures (for
political reasons).4 However, transitions away from conflict, control of crime,
anti-coup strategy and economic imperatives seem to be the most recurrent
reasons for embracing regionalism, more so than, say, strategic imperatives,5 or
the desire to enhance governance, maintain civil control or promote human
rights. .
Sometimes regionalism has emerged as a by-product of other reforms or global
trends, such as process driven constitutional reform(as in the entrenchment of
automatic domestication of international instruments to which South Africa is a
signatory as contained in South Africa’s 1996 constitution) or regional poverty
reduction strategies, EU-ACP agreements and public expenditure management
reforms. For instance, the introduction of MTEF has been important in
mainstreaming African military budgeting within a regional context, bringing it
into line with other state agencies, and making them at least somewhat more
transparent than previously. SAP induced Civil service reforms may also have
exerted some influence on regional trends. Governance programmes also seem
to be facilitating openings into the security sector (for instance, the UNDP-
sponsored National Police Reform Programme in Ghana, DFID’s supported
Security, Safety and Access to Justice programmes).
In spite of these diversities of context and direction, certain commonalities do
seem to be emerging, though limited at this stage. For instance, in SADC
‘community policing’ has become the norm, even though the term appears to
mean different things in different countries (by contrast, the concept is still rare
in West Africa). Another commonality lies in the way that SADC militaries are
named (the term ‘Defence Forces’ has become the accepted way of naming
national military forces) The growing role of sub-regional bodies in norm-setting
may eventually facilitate further convergence (at the moment, however, the
requisite political will remains low);
• The scope of regionalism, which has ranged from the broad, relatively co-
ordinated doctrinal and institutional reforms in West and Southern Africa, to the
piecemeal, ‘approaches that tend to be characteristic of other experiences in East
Africa, Great Lakes and the Maghreb, and which are usually designed to respond
to particular exigencies. ‘Full-scale’ regionalism is expensive in terms of resources,
institutional capacity, and political will and leadership; thus programmes
4 One example may be seen in how Rwanda used regionalism to shift the weight of its security
architecture from a ‘nasty neighbourhood’ in the Great Lakes (in which its relations with its
neighbours had become fraught to a wider neighbourhood in which it seeks to play a very active
and influential role in NEPAD and the new African Union by aligning with bigger players like
South Africa and Nigeria).
5 By ‘strategic imperatives’, we refer here to reforms designed by the states to maximize the
capacity for regional benefits in the face of changing international and/or regional contexts.
South Africa explicitly incorporated this into its Security sector Review, and Rwanda appears to
be headed in a similar direction with its ‘Threat Assessment’ (although probably greater emphasis
is laid here on considerations of internal security).
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7. deliberately designed to accomplish long-term transformation are the exception
rather than the rule;
• The extent to which Regionalism incorporates (or is governed by) formal principles, such as a
strategic framework or fundamental law. Although protocols are regularly signed by
Heads of State and Government at regular summits of these institutions, the
extent to which these protocols and declarations are translated into a framework
of implementation in regional institutions remains suspect.6 This lack of strategic
plans inevitably make the institutions more susceptible to every new idea that is
accompanied by resources, whether it fits into the larger goals of the institutions
or not;
• The processes involved: in a number of cases, regionalism has been preceded by
negotiation and dialogue usually between state parties with little involvement
from citizens. Broad and open dialogue that actually allows citizens to pronounce
their views on regionalist projects (such as we have in the various referenda in the
European Union) is non existent. Although the new leadership in ECOWAS7,
SADC and EAC is beginning to embrace ‘civil society’ involvement, broadly
defined, this is still the exception rather the rule. Correspondingly, regionalism
differs in their degree of transparency (and hence researchability). ‘Open’ regional
reform is almost always the result of a ‘political revolution’ which aims at
broader political transformation;
• The actors or players involved, in particular the context, extent and form of donor
involvement. Regionalism in Africa has tended to be much more donor-
dominated and multi-agency in character. Donors have been driven by different
objectives and have utilized a variety of entry points. Donor interventions have
tended to be characterized by lack of coordination, even between departments in
the same government. However, this problem has increasingly been recognised
and a broader inter-donor coordination is beginning to slowly emerge.8 On the
whole, the role of external actors has been much weaker in shaping regionalism
in Africa than in regions closer to hegemonic centres (East and Central Europe in
relation to the EU and Nato, and Latin America in relation to the US), where
regionalism has also tended to have greater strategic and normative coherence.
In the area of conflict prevention, management and resolution, the role of donors
has been limited in most cases to funding and facilitating DDRR (usually
coordinated by the local UN Mission on the peace-building side or the UNDP
and the World Bank on the development side). Direct donor engagement with
security issues in regional contexts as such is still relatively rare. The few existing
examples include DFID in Sierra Leone and now Uganda and Rwanda, on a
limited scale. DFID has also been involved in police reform in several SADC
countries (there was extensive donor involvement at several levels in the police
6
As at 20th January 2003, 33 protocols and conventions have been entered into force in accordance
with the ECOWAS Treaty.
7
ECOWAS recently established a Civil Society Unit, and drew up parameters for engagement with
civil society institutions in the region. The new African Union is also in the process of finalising the
protocol of the Economic, Cultural and Social Council.
8
On ECOWAS, see for example, West Africa-European Community Regional Cooperation Strategy
Paper and Regional Indicative Programme for the period 2002-2007 –
http://europa.eu.int/comm/development/strat_papers/index_region_fr.htm/
7

8. reform process in South Africa). The British were involved through BMATT in
military integration and retraining in Zimbabwe, South Africa, and now Sierra
Leone (actually IMATT). ‘Traditional’ bilateral relations in the military arena
continue to flourish (the US maintains extensive links through IMET and other
programs), much of it focusing on peacekeeping training (ACRI, RECAMP,
BMATT again). In a number of cases, donor influence in or oversight of security
sector reform (direct as in the case of Sierra Leone or indirect as in the case of
Guinea-Bissau) has been almost total. In spite of this, donor impact in regional
conflict issues has been determined very much by the political will and
responsiveness of the regime involved (contrast Mozambique and Sierra Leone
with Guinea-Bissau). In recent times, regional peacekeeping institutions have also
received donor support. In West Africa, the Kofi Annan International
Peacekeeping Training Centre, the Zambakro Military Training Centre in Cote
d’Ivoire and the Koulikro Military Academy in Mali, have all benefited from such
support.
Other military assistance to regional mechanisms include, for example activities
of United States European Command in ECOWAS conflict prevention work and
most recently – anti-terror activities in the IGAD zones. The effect of this is not
necessarily very conducive to security sector transformation. If anything, the
tendency is to emphasise ‘hard’ security issues in an ad-hoc manner instead of
holistic security which ECOWAS has embraced as an institution.
Ultimately, our position is that given the “glocal” nature of the conflicts afflicting many of the
states in Africa, state rebuilding and consolidation can only be reinforced in the context of
regional integration supported by global partnership. None of the countries in question can
respond to these problems on its own terms and traditional bi-lateral assistance’ only have a
limited chance of sustainable success. Majority of the states are only sovereign in the juridical
sense, not in terms of making available basic provision to their citizens and the most realistic way
of addressing the problems they confront is by treating them as part of a regional system. If one
were to review the dire figures contained in the social and economic indicators below and recent
figures provided on official development assistance in West Africa (The Reality of Aid, African
Edition 2002), it seems evident that to continue to live under the illusion of juridical sovereignty
and westphalian logic is a vehicle for undermining human security in West Africa.
Social and Economic Indicators 2002
Country Population GDP GNP per Human Devt Life Expectancy Adult literacy
(millions) ($bn)) Capita($) Index (%)
Benin 6.0 2.4 380 147 53.6 39
Burkina Faso 11.0 2.6 230 159 46.1 23
Cape Verde 0.4 0.6 1,330 91 69.4 74
Cote d’Ivoire 16.2 10.5 660 144 47.8 46
Gambia 1.3 0.4 330 149 45.9 36
Ghana 19.0 6.8 350 119 56.6 70
Guinea 7.0 3.3 450 150 47.1 35
Guinea-Bissau 1.2 0.2 180 156 44.5 38
Liberia 3.1 NA NA NA NA NA
Mali 11.0 2.6 240 153 51.2 40
Niger 11.0 2.0 180 161 44.8 15
Nigeria 127.0 32.8 260 136 51.5 63
Senegal 9.3 4.7 500 145 52.9 36
Sierra Leone 5.0 0.6 130 162 38.3 32
Togo 5.0 1.4 300 128 51.6 56
Total 233.3 70.9 304(average)
Sources: World Development Report 2002 & UNDP Human Development Report 2002.
So, if human security provides the framework for achieving democratisation and
development, regionalism is the basic institutional scaffolding that we ought to pay
8

9. particular attention to since the gains of a human security approach are best realised
within a regional context. The importance of the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS) can hardly be overemphasised in this context – which is why
elaborating on the place of regional institutions in accomplishing the twin goals of
development and democracy is crucial to the realisation of proper governance and
security in the region.
Yet, acknowledging the importance and inevitability of regionalism is not tantamount to
suggesting that regional institutions are devoid of serious challenges. Indeed, in the case
of ECOWAS and as evident from the balance sheet outlined above, questions continue
to abound as to the extent to which regionalism is grounded in lived experience and can
act as a mechanism for promoting human security. Some of the challenges often
highlighted include amongst others: a) the enduring legacy of the Westphalian nation-
state, b) lack of common core values driving the regional project; c) a perpetual resource
gap hampering progress and implementation of regionalism, d) the formalism of the
regionalist project which tend to emphasise a wide array of institutions with little or no
capacity to manage them; e) issues of regionalism as leaderism in which people to people
partnerships take the backseat whilst regionalism is only happening at the Heads of
States’ level and government realm, f) issues of regional hegemony – all of which tend to
give the impressions of regionalism as an externally driven agenda, and not the product
of the people’s lived experiences.
If, as we have argued, the balance sheet of the 1990s conflicts in West Africa resides in
the severe economic and fiscal compression exemplified by the structural adjustment
shocks of the period, it is not in doubt that regionalism must respond to the erosion of
social capital, political legitimacy and institutional weakening of many African states
through a collective regional response to issues of governance, development and
security.9 In West Africa, ECOWAS has attempted to respond to these imperatives by
broadening the notions of security and developing multi-faceted responses, from being a
strictly regional economic integration agency to a regional development, integration and
security institution. Although ECOWAS has responded to this with an inchoate agenda
and in an incoherent manner, it is possible to discern and cluster its responses into four
categories: 1) promoting human security as the bedrock for peace - The revised
ECOWAS Treaty of 1993, the regional integration strategy and the Mechanism for
Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security play vital roles
in this; 2) democracy and open governance – The supplementary protocol on democracy
and good governance of 2001 addresses this aspect; 3) transformation of violent conflicts
through political processes – the raft of peace talks and agreements on Sierra Leone,
Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea Bissau demonstrate ECOWAS’ commitment; and 4)
collective security for all West African states – linkages with the African Union, the EU-
ACP project and the links to the United Nations also demonstrate ECOWAS’
commitment here.
These protocols and mechanisms go a long way in contributing to norm building and
values reorientation – an area in which ECOWAS has largely excelled, yet their
implementation is still largely work in progress and the challenge for ECOWAS is one of
institutionalising these protocols and mechanisms over the long term.
9
On this issue, see contributions to a recent volume, Nicolas Van de Walle, Nicole Ball & Vijaya
Ramachandran (eds), Beyond Structural Adjustment: The Institutional Context of African Development
(New York: Palgrave, 2003)
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10. Institutionalising Regional Cooperative Security: Opportunities and Prospects for
ECOWAS
It can be reasonably argued that ECOWAS represents to date the best example of a
process of institutionalising cooperative security on the continent. Established in 1975 to
promote cooperation and development in all fields of economic activities among its 15
member states, ECOWAS entered into cooperative security from a primarily regional
economic integration objective in 1990 when it went into Liberia to restore peace.
Although a Mutual Assistance in Defence Protocol was signed in 1981, ECOWAS’ first
foray into the collective security arena in 1990 was ad-hoc and capricious. Indeed, it is fair
to state that the experience garnered in the first peacekeeping mission launched in Liberia
in has enabled ECOWAS to pursue an institutional framework for cooperative security
following the bitter lessons that accompanied a mission that was largely driven through
the goodwill and commitment of a regional hegemon, Nigeria. The lack of clarity over
mandate, political acceptance, composition, military capability and accountability of the
mission affected what was otherwise a well-intentioned regional project with little or no
backing from the international community.
It is however a tribute to ECOWAS leaders that they drew strongly on the lessons of
Liberia and Sierra Leone and decided to institutionalise a conflict mechanism in the
broader scheme of things within the regional economic community. A raft of agreements
- The ECOWAS Revised treaty of 1993, the Protocol relating to the Mechanism for
Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security approved in
1999 and the Supplementary Protocol on Democracy & Good Governance endorsed by
the Heads of State in December 2001 all demonstrate the fact that a great deal of local
thinking is propelling the institutionalisation of a collective security architecture in West
Africa with assigned roles for governments and civil society.
In spite of the changes that have occurred and the structures put in place, the product is
still a long way away from where it should be. If ECOWAS declarations of intent are
indeed turned into substance as the Heads of Government and the Executive Secretariat
are determined to achieve, it is possible for cooperative regional security to take a much
firmer root in West Africa in time to come. In terms of institutions, the Mechanism
established several institutions, organs and strategies, all with defined responsibilities and
aims that address peace and security in the sub-region. The most critical institutions are:
• The Mediation and Security Council – The Council operates at the level of heads of state
and government, ministers and ambassadors, charged with the responsibilities of
taking decisions that impact on peace and security, including authorising deployment
of missions;
• The Defence and Security Commission – Made up of Defence chiefs and security officials
charged with the responsibilities of dealing with the technicalities of military
intervention;
• ECOMOG, the erstwhile ad-hoc force now formally established as a multi-purpose
stand-by force ready for immediate deployment. ECOMOG is described as multi-
purpose in the sense that it can assume one of several functions of observation,
monitoring and peacekeeping. More significantly, it can be deployed for
humanitarian intervention or the enforcement of sanctions. It can also undertake
policing activities in order to control fraud and/or organised crime;
• An early warning system, in the form of a regional observation network has been
created. Established within the secretariat and also in four zones within the
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11. Community, the observation centres are charged with collecting data on states
ranging across economic, political, security and social sectors to be analysed with a
view to detecting early warning signals that may signify potential conflicts which
could then inform region-wide conflict prevention strategies;
• A Council of Elders is also proposed as a mechanism for injecting traditional conflict
resolution mechanism to assume a role in mediation, conciliation and negotiation.
This is made up of 32 eminent persons drawn from within and outside the region
with a mandate for preventive diplomacy and it is convened as and when required by
the Executive Secretariat.
As Figure 1 below shows, the Executive Secretariat plays a central role in ensuring that
the Conflict Mechanism functions adequately. As stated above, the Executive Secretary
has the responsibility to deploy the Council of Elders in any given situation. More
importantly, the newly created office of Political Affairs, Defence and Security (PADS)
headed by a Deputy Executive Secretary is primarily charged with the implementation of
the mechanism, supervision of the Early warning operations and the zonal observation
centres aimed at conflict prevention, servicing of the Defence and Security Commission
and policy formulation and implementation of all peacekeeping and humanitarian
operations.
The Mechanism and its supplementary protocol on Democracy and Good Governance
also take a broader view of security, stressing the importance of human security and
democratic governance in the security sector, including roles for civil society. The
Protocol also covers institutional capacity building in the community in order to provide
humanitarian assistance in conflict or disaster area and provides a framework for action
by the community in the critical area of peace-building – a pioneer document in the field
of humanitarian intervention. .
Whilst the ECOWAS mechanism offers a good approach to designing a framework for
cooperative security, its implementation in Cote d’Ivoire and Liberia have pointed to
noticeable gaps. Indeed, the experience in ECOMICI(the mission in Cote d’Ivoire) and
ECOMIL(Mission in Liberia) have both demonstrated the desperate need for an
enhanced conflict prevention and management planning and operational management
capability at the Secretariat whilst broadening the involvement of other critical
stakeholders. For example, the involvement of the ECOWAS Parliament in the
implementation of the Mechanism and the Supplementary Protocol on Good
Governance and Democracy through the revision of the Protocol that established the
Parliament is one aspect of this review that ought to take place. The protocol
establishing the Parliament makes it essentially a forum, composed of delegations from
national parliaments, whose ‘opinion may be sought on matters concerning the
Community’ on a range of areas prior to their adoption by the Council’ with little or no
supra-national legislative powers. This system clearly suffers a ‘huge dose of democratic
deficit’ since parliamentarians are the only direct representatives of the citizens in the
Community. Yet, true as this is, the history of trans-national legislatures the world over
is one of evolution, usually from delegations from national parliaments to directly elected
representation. It is also the case that the powers of trans-national parliaments gradually
evolve from being largely consultative assemblies to genuine decision-making legislatures,
both in scope and in powers. Circumstances dictate these inevitable transitions and the
performance of the parliament to date gives the impression that its powers will certainly
grow in consonance with the quality of representation in the Parliament. It is however
commendable that the Authority of Heads of State and Government is now committed
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12. to enhancing the powers of the Parliament and promoting the principles of co-decision
with Council.10
At the strategic level, even though a raft of mechanisms and protocols that very clearly
set the parameters for the effective functioning of the organization are in place, there is
no coherent strategy for turning these declarations of intent into implementable actions
(as events in Cote d’Ivoire and lately Liberia brought out in clear relief), leaving room for
often well-meaning, but usually misguided initiatives to occupy the time of staff.
This problem is made worse by the operational inefficiencies within the organization as a
whole. This is partly a capacity issue, with key positions left unfilled and the
overwhelming pressure that is placed on the few key officials recruited. In terms of
professional staff, the Executive Secretariat is currently heavily understaffed due to a
hiring freeze caused by financial constraints. The middle management level within the
Secretariat requires strengthening in terms of personnel and procedures so that is capable
of functioning with greater automaticity. At the present time, decisions tend to require the
leadership and the Secretariat’s leadership that is often absent on official business.
The Secretariat currently consists of some 50 professionals; however, a recent assessment
indicated a need for 85 additional professional staff members – staff that are critical to
the smooth functioning of the organisation.11 At the time of the mission in May 2003, the
important Political Affairs, Defence and Security (PADS) department formed in 2001,
for example, only just recruited in September 2003 to three of its four departmental
heads. Meanwhile, other departments operate on the basis of temporary appointments.
Though a first hiring round has been approved and several positions were recently
advertised, the Secretariat still faces financial constraints and at present time it is
unknown how soon the additional positions will be filled.
Box 2: Staff Situation in ECOWAS Secretariat in October 2003
Administrative Unit Approved Current Staff Proposed Expected
Organisation (2002) Organisation Consultants
Chart (1999) Chart (2005) (short term)
1. Cabinet 1 1 1 2
2. Legal 3 1 4 0
3. Internal Audit 2 1 3 0
4. Communications 3 2 4 0
5. Administration 21 10 26 0
6. Finance 4 4 8 0
7. Agriculture/Rural 7 4 12 1
Development
8. Infrastructure and 5 7 12 2
Industry
9. Human Development 4 1 7 1
10. Computer Centre 5 5 12 0
11. Trade and Customs 6 5 10 1
12. Economic Policy 8 4 14 2
13. Political Affairs 3 1 3 1
14. Humanitarian Affairs 3 1 3 0
15. Defence and Security 4 1 4 0
10
See paragraph 50 of the Final Communiqué issued at the end of the 25th session of the Authority of
Heads of State and Government held in Dakar, Senegal, on December 20 and 21, 2001.
11
KPMG, Review of Organisational Development at the ECOWAS Secretariat, Abuja.
12

13. 16. Monitoring Centre 7 5 10 0
17. Financial Controller 0 0 2 0
TOTAL 86 53 135 10
Though the long-standing embargo on new appointments has ended, the speed of
recruitment will be influenced by ECOWAS’ continuing financial problems.
In a recent document linked to the NEPAD implementation process, a number of
critical management issues were highlighted, together with the actions need to be taken in
order for ECOWAS to meet its future challenges12:
• Consolidating its internal structure and simplifying the layers of decision-making
required
• Strengthening the Office of the Executive Secretary in order to better define the
institution’s corporate strategy, business plan and corporate strategies and to align its
programmes systematically with the NEPAD programme so as to have a systematic
corporate view of the institution’s activities and key performance indicators
• Developing an efficient information system, which requires equipment, new
software, and a corporate framework to ensure that the subsystems are coherent and
communicate easily with each other
• Enhancing its communication capacity to inform civil society in the member states
regarding the content and implementation of NEPAD
• Developing more transparent and streamlined administrative and financial
procedures
• Developing an up-to-date management culture that will be action- and result-oriented
• Revising the staff evaluation and incentive systems.
While the above list was elaborated in a NEPAD context, the points made are also very
much in line with what is needed within the Peace and Security area.
Whilst the capacity gap is not in doubt, of more importance however is the lack of clarity
over roles and responsibilities, absence of agenda-setting and proper supervision by the
leadership and low level of prioritization in the organization. Some of these have been
highlighted by the crisis in Cote d’Ivoire that has sapped the energy of the organization
and often dominated the agenda of its senior management, but many of the problems are
the result of the inherent weaknesses of the organizational structure which should elicit
the concern of the Authority of Heads of State and Government.13
Although the current Executive Secretary came in with a commitment to effectively
operationalise the protocols and mechanisms that have emerged over the years and his
commitment remains unwavering in my view, his focus has largely been overtaken by
events in short term reactions to emerging situations with all its attendant ramifications,
and this has left him little time for effectively overseeing the affairs of the Secretariat. His
four deputies for (Political Affairs, Defence and Security, Integration Programmes, Policy
Harmonisation and Finance & Administration – see Organogram) are also occupied with
other issues, leaving often a near total absence of leadership in the Secretariat, save for
12
Institutional Capacity Building Programme: Short Term Action Plan, ECOWAS Secretariat,
October 2002.
13
The Executive Secretary is particularly concerned about this, and he has been organizing
management retreats for the senior professionals with support from USAID West Africa Regional
Office in Bamako, Mali.
13

14. the Director of Cabinet in his office. Indeed, the situation is so bad that ECOWAS may
be losing a lot of goodwill it has gained from the international community, either for
tardy responses to offers of support or inexplicable loss of opportunities.
ECOWAS Organogram
Tied to this is the donor dependency that is the bane of the organisation. External
assistance, in and of itself ought not to be a problem, provided it is based on a process
owned at least jointly with the recipients of external assistance, if not exclusively by them.
With a lack of a strategic plan which will enable ECOWAS to assess external offers of
assistance in the context of how they fit into the overall plan of the institution, rather
than on the basis of the purported benefit to ECOWAS by the purveyors of these
initiatives, the organisation ends up depending on the received wisdom of the external
‘do-gooders’ to the detriment of overall interest of security and stability in the sub-
region.14 On the flip side, with improper briefing on developments within ECOWAS,
many funders fall over themselves to support ECOWAS at the strategic, institutional and
operational levels with little knowledge of the organisational imperatives and needs. In
most cases, ECOWAS is unable to respond due to demands for support due to its own
capacity problems and many of such funders become frustrated and speak ill of the
organisation at every opportunity, rather than see the problem as the result of a lack of
shared understanding and ownership. Consequently, weak institutional development and
a lack of strategic direction probably represent equally serious problems in addition to
competing donor agendas.15
14
In the most egregious instances, donors insist on offering technical assistance to ECOWAS even
when this is not the most three desperate need of the organization. In one particular instance, three
countries offered ECOWAS technical military assistance and decided to send mid-career or retired
military officers to work in the ECOWAS Secretariat. While some of the liaison officers are quite
competent and committed to the goals of regional security, they have not been able to achieve a great
deal because ECOWAS has refused to take ownership, arguing rather half-heartedly that they don’t
really need these officers
15
Although efforts are being made to address donor competition, I am not optimistic that the problems
can be overcome in the short-term because of the refusal to adopt regional strategies on the part of
donors. Many donors still exhibit preferences for particular countries and specific projects regardless
of whether these contribute to an expedited overall regional strategy. Donors are meeting with
14

15. This obviously raises a fundamental question of accountability and strategic interests
especially when those external interests conflict with local and regional imperatives.
Again, the Executive Secretariat is exploring various innovative efforts such as the 0.5 tax
on imports into member states to ensure ownership and address the implications of
donor driven agendas, none to date has proved to be successful in getting states to meet
their assessed contributions to the Community, leaving the wealthiest and most populous
State to underwrite the expenses of the organisation, with accusations of domination in
its wake.
A third, perhaps most critical problem with the ECOWAS framework is that of a lack of
agreement on a common understanding on security and stability. Although the protocols
referred to above were signed with fanfare by most of the Heads of government and
their representatives, nation-building peculiarities make it difficult for member states to
exhibit a shared understanding of a common future. This is worsened by the politics of
post 9/11 period which is returning ECOWAS and other regional institutions into hard
security issues, rather than maintaining the emphasis on human security issues that have
relevance to the wider community. It would be sad if the view were to gain widespread
acceptance that despotic peace is better than problematic democratic freedom and
ECOWAS leaders are demonstrating continued commitment to what matters to the
people of West Africa, in spite of external pressures.16 The fact that the ECOWAS has
faced various challenges in responding to the Ivorien crisis underscores the need for a
framework that goes beyond the creation of institutions and structures, but one that also
possesses the capacity and the credibility to act on the side of humanitarian intervention
and restoration of order.
Towards a Framework for Regional Human Security: Recommendations
Although what the West African experience demonstrates is that cooperative security is
possible, even among states that lack common values, the future success of cooperative
security depends not only on spreading values that promote human security, but also on
developmental regionalism that intensifies economic ties even in the quest to foster a
sense of a ‘security community’ that serves the interest of all its members. The closer the
ties among states and their citizens in the socio-economic spheres, the more they will
find ways to further their security cooperatively.
Hence, given the context of regionalism described above and the challenges to
cooperative security in Africa, a number of factors are, in my own view, central to the
success or otherwise of the process of entrenching cooperative security in any regional
bloc, if we are to move beyond the formalism of the moment. They include, but are not
necessarily limited to the following key elements:
• Understanding the nature of the post-colonial state and the nation-building prospects
in Africa and the prospects for reinforcing state-building through regionalism;
• Subscription to and institutionalisation of core regional values and norms;
ECOWAS in Accra, Ghana from November 13 – 15, 2003 to try and harmonise issues and
programmes.
16
The way the ECOWAS leadership has responded to the recent crisis in Guinea Bissau is a testimony
to its commitments to the values of democracies and good governance in the region.
15

16. • Focusing on deepening democratic and open governance and preventing violent
conflicts through political processes;
• Promoting long term conditions for security and development by using human
security as a bedrock for peace;
• Developing an integrated peacebuilding approach to human security – through the
promotion of governmental and non-governmental approaches and treating
peacekeeping, peacemaking and post-conflict transformation in a continuum;
• Entrenching democratic governance of the security sector by establishing a clear role
definition for security services whilst enhancing professionalism of the sector;
• Building the capacity of African institutions for early warning, as well as enhancing
their capacity to prevent, manage and resolve conflicts;
• Strengthening developmental regionalism as a means of addressing the negative
aspects of globalisation;
• Establishing the parameters of genuine continental and global partnership – including
role clarification between sub-regional bodies, African Union, United Nations etc.
Whilst it is difficult to be prescriptive about the framework for human security in Africa,
the outline above offers a research agenda to pursue in the post norm-building phase of
ECOWAS development. In spite of the gaps highlighted in this paper, it is gratifying to
note that most of what I have stated here are fully reflected as the key vehicles for
cooperation between the new African Union and the Regional Economic Communities
in Africa’s quest for sustainable security and development. ECOWAS has been ahead of
the pack in many respects in spite of its capacity limitations, and it continues to exhibits
the best prospects for deepening regional conflict prevention and management projects
among all of the RECs.
The challenge is one of maintaining current gains, as well as achieving and promoting the
values of ownership, participation, open and transparency accountability, fundamental
freedoms and the rule of law and, to complement structures through people to people
partnerships. The overriding importance of responsible politics and responsive
leadership in building regional security cooperation is evident from the above. Until we
get both, the move from hegemonic regionalism to developmental regionalism, which
may keep the peace, but will hardly promote fundamental values of ownership and
integration, is bound to be slow.
16