The 2024 crisis exposed structural faults at the core of the West African regional body. At 50, can the once-great institution claw back its vision and purpose?
By Sheriff Bojang Jnr, The Africa Report —
As global bodies mark milestone anniversaries — from the United Nations at 80 to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) at 50 — celebrations are clouded by a deeper reckoning.
Once heralded as pillars of global and regional order, many multilateral organisations are now struggling to contain impunity, uphold democratic norms, or meet the demands of increasingly restless populations.
In West Africa, the spotlight has fallen on ECOWAS, long seen as the gold standard for regional cooperation and crisis response, but now facing a serious test of relevance and resolve.
Enforcer of constitutional rule
Liberian activist Aaron Weah was still in school in Monrovia when news spread of the ECOWAS peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, arriving. “There was a feeling of relief, jubilation and hope,” says Weah, now head of the Ducor Institute for Social and Economic Research. “But there was still anxiety. The country was already torn apart by warring factions.”
By 1990, Liberia’s civil war had reached a breaking point as rival armed groups battled for control of the capital. With Western powers unwilling to intervene, ECOWAS deployed the Nigerian-led ECOMOG force, a politically contentious move, but one largely welcomed by Liberians as a last hope for peace.
Backed by troops from Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia, the mission helped stabilise the country before withdrawing in 1996.
ECOWAS later intervened in Sierra Leone, toppling a military junta in 1998 and reinstating elected president Ahmed Tejan Kabbah. Over the next two decades, the bloc built a reputation as West Africa’s enforcer of constitutional rule, most notably in 2017, when it forced longtime Gambian ruler Yahya Jammeh into exile after he refused to concede defeat in the December 2016 presidential election.
‘Mismatch of priorities’
But as ECOWAS marks its 50th anniversary, that era of decisive intervention now feels distant. In the past five years alone, the bloc has failed to prevent or reverse coups in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Guinea. While it imposed sanctions and threatened military action, particularly in Niger, it ultimately backed down, revealing its shrinking leverage.
“We’re now in a vastly different political and security environment than in the 1990s,” says Beverley Ochieng, a Dakar-based security risk analyst.
ECOWAS has condemned coups but remained silent on presidential term limit extensions. How do you explain this?
In January 2024, after months of rising diplomatic tensions, the military governments of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger withdrew from ECOWAS and formed the Alliance of Sahel States, citing sovereignty and security failures.
Ochieng believes the crisis exposed deeper structural problems, particularly the bloc’s dependence on Nigeria, a country grappling with its own internal insurgencies. “It feels like ECOWAS ceded the security role to France and the UN, instead of building a self-reliant regional response,” she says. “There was a mismatch of priorities and a lack of foresight.”
Ochieng points out that ECOWAS has been taking a new approach behind the scenes. In recent months, it has softened its tone, shifting away from threats to a more pragmatic focus on counterterrorism cooperation. Plans to establish a regional counterterrorism force are under discussion, though funding and political will remain uncertain.
Quiet diplomacy has also played a role in preventing further escalation. Togo and Senegal have emerged as key mediators between ECOWAS and the Sahelian governments, helping maintain a fragile channel of communication.
“The fact that ECOWAS and the Sahelian regimes can still talk and agree to coexist shows that adaptation is possible,” says Ochieng. “It may no longer be the dominant force it once was,” Ochieng says, “but ECOWAS is still an institution capable of reinvention.”
Democracy for whom?
While ECOWAS has taken a hard line in its condemnation of military coups, critics say its commitment to democracy has been selective at best.
“ECOWAS has condemned coups but remained silent on presidential term limit extensions. How do you explain this?” says Madi Jobarteh, a Gambian civil society activist. “The fact is, ECOWAS, essentially an ‘Authority of Heads of State’, is aiding and abetting self-perpetuating rule. It’s undermining democracy in West Africa.”
Jobarteh points to the contradiction: all but two ECOWAS states (Togo and The Gambia) have term limits on paper, yet several presidents have used constitutional amendments and legal gymnastics to cling to power, often without consequence.
“These same leaders cannot condemn one another because nearly all of them are guilty of violating their own constitutions or ECOWAS protocols,” he says. “The result is either a coup or democratic backsliding or both.”
To restore credibility, Jobarteh argues, ECOWAS must undertake deep structural reforms, starting with a revision of its founding treaty. “The current setup makes it unfit for purpose,” he says. “‘Authority of Heads of State’ wields unchecked power. They can’t hold each other accountable and neither can anyone else.”
Economic unity slipping away?
If ECOWAS’s political clout has diminished, its economic agenda has also faltered. Despite its longstanding goal of creating a single West African market, the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme and Common External Tariff remain patchily implemented.
Countries frequently close borders, impose unilateral tariffs or violate free trade rules in the name of national interest.
Every country protects its own backyard
“We’ve been talking about economic integration for decades,” says a Lagos-based trade economist. “But there’s little consistency. Every country protects its own backyard.”
Meanwhile, the rise of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) threatens to eclipse ECOWAS’s economic ambitions. While AfCFTA spans the entire continent, its success depends heavily on regional blocs like ECOWAS aligning infrastructure, customs systems and enforcement, areas where the West African bloc has consistently struggled.
Its economic and infrastructural integration efforts remain hobbled by chronic underfunding and bureaucratic inertia. The key challenge facing ECOWAS, says Ghanaian technologist and analyst Bright Simons, is that its regional financial institutions, like the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID), lacks the capacity to back major integration accelerants.
“ECOWAS is entirely dependent on donors like GIZ [Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, a German development agency], Mastercard, and others to even develop project blueprints, much less to catalyse investment into them,” the economist says.
Reaching bankability has relied entirely on the largesse of Western donor agencies
Simons cites the West Africa Power Pool, a cooperation of national electricity companies in the subregion under the auspices of ECOWAS as a case in point. Despite an abundance of renewable energy resources in the region, efforts to integrate them through grid modernisation and battery storage have stalled. “Reaching bankability has relied entirely on the largesse of Western donor agencies,” he tells The Africa Report.
That dependence has exposed a deeper structural weakness. “Very little effort has been made to mobilise the regional private sector to fund even a basic project preparation mechanism,” Simons says.
Instead, ECOWAS, like other regional economic communities (RECs) and even the African Union, competes for the same pots of donor funding, often undermining strategic momentum for large-scale projects like the Great Green Wall, a major environmental corridor that cuts through ECOWAS territory.
Simons also questions the relevance of certain ECOWAS institutions altogether, citing the ECOWAS Parliament and courts. “Their resolutions and judgments are routinely ignored. It would be more effective to consolidate these functions under the African Union Parliament.”
Yet even with these limitations, some analysts say ECOWAS still holds the region together in critical ways. “It remains a key anchor for freedom of movement and cross-border trade,” says Ochieng, “especially in an increasingly fragmented geopolitical landscape.”
ECOWAS did not respond to our request for comment by the time of publication.
Source: The Africa Report
Featured image: A small group of protesters hold Russian and Burkina Faso flags as they protest against ECOWAS in Ouagadougou in October 2022 (ISSOUF SANOGO / AFP).
