By Kebba AF Touray
Hajia Alima Ahmed, the First Secretary General of the ECOWAS Parliament, has called for stronger institutions, deeper integration and people-centred approach to achieve a prosperous vision for a cohesive West Africa.
SG Ahmed was making a presentation on Monday, 3 March 2025 in Lagos, during the ongoing extraordinary session of the ECOWAS Parliament.
The presentation assessed ECOWAS’s achievements, challenges and prospects by focusing on its role in regional integration, peace and development. While ECOWAS has made significant strides in promoting regional integration, peace, and development over the past 50 years, she said challenges like political instability, weak enforcement mechanisms, and security threats, remain.
“The next 50 years therefore require stronger institutions, deeper integration and a people centred approach to achieve the vision of a prosperous and cohesive West Africa,” she said.
ECOWAS was established in 1975 to promote economic integration among 15 West African states, and has evolved into a multifaceted body to address the economic, political and security issues of the Region for the past 50 years.
Ms Ahmed explained that ECOWAS was founded on May 28, 1975 via the Treaty of Lagos, and revised in 1993 to expand its mandate on the promotion of economic integration, peace, security and development. He outlined that key achievements from 1975-2025, include economic integration (implementation of the Trade Liberalization Scheme); Peace and Security (Deployment of ECOMOG to countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone to resolve conflicts). The successes of the Regional body, she said, also include democratic governance through mediation in political crises such as the one in The Gambia in 2017, and health and social development responses to Ebola and COVID-19 through WAHO. She said the ECOWAS Vision 2020 was adopted in Abuja in June 2007, to create a borderless, prosperous and cohesive region by 2020.
“It focused on economic integration, peace and good governance. Transition from an ‘‘ECOWASof States’’ to an ‘‘ECOWAS of Peoples’’ to ensure that citizens are at the centre of regional integration and benefit directly from its policies,” Ms Ahmed said. She, however, cited political instability, economic constraints, security threats and health and environmental crises as challenges in achieving Vision 2020. She said key objectives of ECOWAS’ new Vision 2050, are enhanced governance, economic integration, security cooperation, social and human capital development and environmental sustainability, and outlined that the challenges facing the Regional body include political instability through recent military coups in Mali (2020, 2021), Guinea (2021), Burkina Faso (2022) and Niger (2023), and weak enforcement of democratic norms.
She said economic disparities due to uneven economic growth among member states, and delayed implementation of the ECO currency, is also challenged by security threats such as a rise in terrorism in the Sahel region particularly from groups like ‘Boko Haram’ and ‘Al-Qaeda’ affiliates.
Weak institutional enforcement, she said, is another factor which relates to the limited authority over member states, coupled with the non-compliance of some member states on ECOWAS’ protocols and decisions. She said the prospects of ECOWAS are in the area of strengthening democracy, deepening economic integration, consolidating security cooperation, and youth and gender inclusion.
