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Trade, Development and Regional Integration under an ECOWAS-EPA
The West African region has been locked in preparations for trade and integration under the ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Scheme (ETLS), a Protocol signed since 1975. Unfortunately, old as the integration mechanism is, it has not yielded the desired objective. The member states of ECOWAS are still under the pains of facilitating free trade within the region as this has met several policy stumbling blocks and political impediments which have been aggravated by instability and crises within the sub-region.
The region has on the other hand been engaged in a non-reciprocal trade arrangement with one of her greatest trading partners, the European Union, dating as far back as 1965 under the Yaoundé Agreement, which was later concretized in 1975 under the Lome Agreement covering the 77 countries in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) bloc. Of note, the Lome Agreement expired in the year 2000 and was sought to be replaced by the Cotonou Agreement which eventually ushered in reciprocal trade arrangement currently being negotiated under the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
The implementation of the EPA currently being negotiated is scheduled to begin in 2008, with transitory period of 12 years, through to 2020. The EPA seeks to establish a new framework for the relationship between the ACP countries and the EU. The ongoing negotiation of this new arrangement points a clear departure from the previous non-reciprocal preferential trade relations under the four successive Lomé Conventions. However, the Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA) promises priority attention to development, regional integration and poverty reduction as its core objectives.
The CPA is to usher in a framework drastically different from Lome Conventions in three respects. First, it involves a reciprocal relationship between the EU and ACP countries; second, the CPA is to be institutionalized in a series of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) each of which will be structured as a free trade agreement (FTA) between the EU and a group of ACP countries. Thirdly, the EPA will be negotiated separately between the EU on the one hand, and a number of ACP regions on the other hand.
A key promise by the EU to ECOWAS via the EPA structure is the deepening of its integration process, which the sub-regional group has struggled to perfect in the past over 30 years. Integration and trade facilitation are inter-woven elements which determine benefits derivable from trade agreements. Regional integration arrangement is capable of facilitating intra-regional trade; it may also position the region for enhanced access to other markets, and finally ensure trade development, but the later must prima-facia be based on a well-netted and practicably working framework.
The West African sub region is made up of 16 countries. Eight of these, mainly French speaking, already form the Union Economique Monetaire ‘Ouest Afrique (UEMOA), a central coordinating body for monetary and economic policies. The sub region has been described as the poorest globally. Per capita income is one of the lowest and all countries of the sub region (with the exception of Cape Verde) are classified as Least Developed Country (LDC). While it accounts for 3.9 percent of the world’s population, it contributes only 0.23% of world income. Its total income of US$109 billion is 72% of the average for low income countries and 6% of the world average.
The push for a formidable ECOWAS regional institution has been on since 1975, as has been noted earlier but till date, only very little has been achieved. Cohesion and cooperation has been most difficult to achieve. There seems to be an atmosphere of mistrust among nations of the sub region and implementation of agreed protocols are very low. Like in many other parts of Africa, there is multiplicity of supranational associations in the sub region each competing for attention with little or no coordination. Breaking the economic and cultural barriers to effective integration and merging these associations into one has not been easy and this reflects in members’ inputs into the broader ECOWAS association. Trans-national infrastructure in the sub region is one of the weakest in the world.
One area that has also impeded ECOWAS integration is its history. There is mutual suspicion among nations of the sub region owing to historical and colonial ties. The larger body of French West Africa (under the umbrella of the UEMOA) has greater ties among themselves and also with France. Economic cooperation among these countries has advanced up to monetary cooperation and customs union. This contrasts with the weak ties among Anglophone countries where the fast track project is yet to kick off despite years of rhetoric. Besides, there is an unending suspicion of Nigerian domination among the smaller countries of the region to the extent that even when Nigeria is in actual fact the big brother supplying a major part of the economic and political need of the region, the suspicion has persisted. There is equally the problem of language. Most countries of the sub region inherited the language of their former colonial masters as lingua franca and there are as yet little efforts on imparting counterpart language training through the school curriculum in any of the countries.
For Nigeria, integration at the ECOWAS level is at two levels, the first – the customs union (with a Common External Tariff - CET) involving all ECOWAS countries and a monetary integration within West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ). The first requires a common trade policy while the second requires a common monetary policy. Many dates have been established and many protocols signed for effective kick of the two programmes but both programmes are still outstanding. Besides, much of the macroeconomics of the countries of the sub regional is still inconsistent with the provisions of the CET and WAMZ.
The ECOWAS Common Agricultural Policy (ECOWAP) has been currently adopted just like the CET. The region is also moving towards harmonization of an Investment policy among others. Although this is a good omen to the region, however, this policy harmonization of instruments of regional integration ought to have been done prior to and without the pressure emanating from the quest to negotiate EPA. Little wonder the popular and wide assumption today is that this process is foreign motivated, while inputs and sensitization on these programmes at country levels have remained very minimal.
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