This book focuses on the ECOWAS Commission, both as an autonomous actor, as well as a policy-making nexus for its member states and external actors. Drawing from a variety of never-before analyzed sources, unpublished internal documents and over 120 interviews with staff from the ECOWAS Commission, its member states, and external actors supporting the organization, this book presents a comprehensive portrait of ECOWAS’s institutional capabilities, challenges, and reforms. It utilizes a policy studies approach focusing on the areas of political affairs, peace, and regional security, as well as trade and customs to illustrate concrete cases of policy making. In doing so, the book provides practice-oriented insights into the policy-making agency within the organization, arguing for the significance of the ECOWAS Commission as an actor. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of West Africa and its international relations, comparative regionalism, international organization studies, development studies, policy-making, peace and conflict studies, governance and more broadly to African politics and international relations.

" Assessing the potential benefits and risks of a currency union Leaders of the fifteen-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have set a goal of achieving a monetary and currency union by late 2020. Although some progress has been made toward achieving this ambitious goal, major challenges remain if the region is to realize the necessary macroeconomic convergence and establish the required institutional framework in a relatively short period of time. The proposed union offers many potential benefits, especially for countries with historically high inflation rates and weak central banks. But, as implementation of the euro over the past two decades has shown, folding multiple currencies, representing disparate economies, into a common union comes with significant costs, along with operational challenges and transitional risks. All these potential negatives must be considered carefully by ECOWAS leaders seeking tomeet a self-imposed deadline. This book, by two leading experts on economics and Africa, makes a significant analytical contribution to the debates now under way about how ECOWAS could achieve and manage its currency union, andthe ramifications for the African continent. "

Regional security institutions play a significant role in shaping the behavior of existing and rising regional powers by nurturing security norms and rules, monitoring state activities, and sometimes imposing sanctions, thereby formulating the configuration of regional security dynamics. Yet, their security roles and influence do not remain constant. Their raison d'etre, objectives, and functions experience sporadic changes, and some institutions upgrade military functions for peacekeeping operations, while others limit their functions to political and security dialogues. The question is: why and how do these variances in institutional change emerge? This book explores the mechanisms of institutional change, focusing on regional security institutions led by non-great powers. It constructs a theoretical model for institutional change that provides a new understanding of their changing roles in regional security, which has yet to be fully explored in the International Relations field. In so doing, the book illuminates why, when, and how each organization restructures its role, function, and influence. Using case studies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Organization of African Unity (OAU)/ African Union (AU), it also sheds light on similarities and differences in institutional change between regional security institutions.

Contemporary Regional Development in Africa interrogates well-known concerns in the areas of regionalism and economic integration in contemporary Africa, while offering an added uniqueness by highlighting the capacity imperatives of the issues, and proposing critical policy guideposts. The volume juxtaposes a set of ’dynamic’ entanglements - new and micro-regionalism, informal cross-border trade, intra-African and African FDI plus cross-border investments, infrastructure development, science and technology, regional value-chains, conflict management and regional security - with fluid interpretations of regional development. The chapters provide snapshots of the several emerging and complex regionalisms and highlight a set of relevant and often overlapping analyses - drawing on authors’ nuanced and granular understanding of the African landscape. The varied, yet interlinked, nature of issues covered in this study make the book valuable and attractive to academics, researchers, policymakers and development practitioners.

Since 1963, when the African integration project was born, regional Economic Communities (RECs) have been an indispensable part of the continents deeper socioeconomic and political integration. More than half a century later, such regional institutions continue to evolve, keeping pace with an Africa that is transforming itself amid challenges and opportunities. RECs represent a huge potential to be the engines that drive the continents economic growth and development as well as being vehicles through which a sense of a continental community is fostered. It is critical therefore that citizens understand the multi-faceted and bureaucratic operations of regional institutions in order to use them to advance their collective interests.

This book examines how the existence of overlapping regional institutions has presented a daunting challenge to the workings of various Regional Economic Communities (RECs) on the African continent. The majority of the African countries are members of overlapping and, sometimes, contradictory RECs. For instance, in East Africa, while Kenya and Uganda are both members of EAC and COMESA, Tanzania, which is also a member of the EAC, left COMESA in 2001 to join SADC. In West Africa, while all former French colonies belong to ECOWAS, they simultaneously keep membership of UEMOA, an organization which is not recognized by the African Union (AU). Such multiple and confusing memberships create unnecessary duplication and dims the light on what ought to be priority. Various chapters in this book have therefore sought to identify and proffer solutions to related challenges confronting the workings of the RECs in different sub-regions of the African continent. The discourses range from security to the stock exchange, identity integration, development framework, labour movement and cross-border relations. The pattern adopted in the book involves devolution of related discussions from the general to the specific; that is, from the continental level to sub-regional case studies.

This book examines postcolonial strategies for economic development in Africa from the 1960s to the present day.

This edited volume addresses the accomplishments, prospects and challenges of regional integration processes on the African continent. Since regional integration is a process that ebbs and flows according to a wide range of variables such as changing political and economic conditions, implications and factors derived from the vagaries of migration and climate change, it is crucial to be cognizant with how these variables impact regional integration initiatives. The contributors discuss the debates on Pan-Africanism and linking it with ongoing discourses and policies on regional integration in Africa. Other aspects of the book contain some of the most important topic issues such as migration, border management and the sustainable development goals. This content offers readers fresh and innovative perspectives on various aspects of sustainable development and regional growth in Africa.

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism - the first of its kind - offers a systematic and wide-ranging survey of the scholarship on regionalism, regionalization, and regional governance. Unpacking the major debates, leading authors of the field synthesize the state of the art, provide a guide to the comparative study of regionalism, and identify future avenues of research. Twenty-seven chapters review the theoretical and empirical scholarship with regard to the emergence of regionalism, the institutional design of regional organizations and issue-specific governance, as well as the effects of regionalism and its relationship with processes of regionalization. The authors explore theories of cooperation, integration, and diffusion explaining the rise and the different forms of regionalism. The handbook also discusses the state of the art on the world regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Eurasia, Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Various chapters survey the literature on regional governance in major issue areas such as security and peace, trade and finance, environment, migration, social and gender policies, as well as democracy and human rights. Finally, the handbook engages in cross-regional comparisons with regard to institutional design, dispute settlement, identities and communities, legitimacy and democracy, as well as inter- and transregionalism.

Regional development is a broad term but can be seen as a general effort to reduce regional disparities by supporting (employment and wealth-generating) economic activities in regions. In the past, regional development policy tended to try to achieve these objectives by means of large-scale infrastructure development and by attracting inward investment” (OECD, 2014).A territorial and regional approach to development is crucial in addressing regional challenges, regional economic competitiveness, and reducing socio-economic discrepancies. This book provides a forum to articulate and discuss Africa’s regional development issues in view of the rising opportunities within the African region. This volume contains 14 chapters and is organized in four sections: Introduction; Industry, Trade and Investment in Africa; Agricultural Services and the Water-energy-food Nexus in Africa; and Environmental and Cultural Dimensions to Africa’s Regional Development.