Region-Building in West Africa

Region-Building in West Africa

Author: Emmanuel Balogun

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 9780429436734

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"This book examines the role of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) practitioners in coordinating, creating, and managing regional governance practices in the areas of public health, peace and security, and micro-financial integration. Since 1975, there have been many failed and successful attempts at unconstitutional government changes in West Africa. During this same period, numerous instruments have been designed to promote peace and security in the region. This book examines the role of bureaucratic actors in the ECOWAS in harmonizing regional integration policy in West Africa. Using data from fieldwork in several countries in West Africa, Balogun observes how ECOWAS practitioners network and strategically engage regional stakeholders in Health, Peace and Security, and Finance as a means to deepen harmonization between ECOWAS member states and build a connection with civil society. Balogun argues that the founding conditions of ECOWAS set the organization on an institutional path to adapt its approaches to regional governance. This work will prove useful to scholars of regionalism, region-building and institutions and to those studying West Africa more specifically"--


Region-Building in West Africa

Region-Building in West Africa

Author: Emmanuel Balogun

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-06-30

Total Pages: 149

ISBN-13: 0429791844

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This book examines the role of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) practitioners in coordinating, creating, and managing regional governance practices in the areas of public health, peace and security, and microfinancial integration. Since 1975, there have been many failed and successful attempts at unconstitutional government changes in West Africa. During this same period, numerous instruments have been designed to promote peace and security in the region. This book examines the role of bureaucratic actors in the ECOWAS in harmonizing regional integration policy in West Africa. Using data from fieldwork in several countries in West Africa, Balogun observes how ECOWAS practitioners network and strategically engage regional stakeholders in health, peace and security, and finance as a means to deepen harmonization between ECOWAS Member States and build a connection with civil society. Balogun argues that the founding conditions of ECOWAS set the organization on an institutional path to adapt its approaches to regional governance. Region-Building in West Africa challenges the idea that self-interested leaders limit regional cooperation. The book also challenges the idea that the bureaucrats in the organization are glorified servants to their governments. Region-Building in West Africa instead focuses on the influence that bureaucrats have in shaping the international policy agenda of ECOWAS. This book will be useful to scholars, students, and practitioners in Africa and beyond who want to better understand the inner workings of African regional organizations, and the processes that drive cooperation across West Africa.


Regional Integration and Cooperation in West Africa

Regional Integration and Cooperation in West Africa

Author: Réal P. Lavergne

Publisher: Africa Research and Publications

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13:

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This book contains a collection of papers that examine the failure of regional integration and co-operation to date in west Africa and that explore some of the options for the revitalization of such initiatives. The papers are arranged in three categories: strategic visions and prospects for regional integration and co-operation; economic perspectives; and political dimensions. Specific topics include the role of the Economic Community of West African States; theoretical models and approaches to regional integration; the role of community building in regional integration; partnerships for innovation; national policies as impediments to economic integration; parallel trade as a form of economic subversion; lessons from the West African Monetary Union; human rights and integration; the regional dimension of environmental management; and power sharing at the regional level.


Region-Building in Africa

Region-Building in Africa

Author: Daniel H. Levine

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-05-19

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 1137586117

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This landmark book is the first of its kind to assess the challenges of African region-building and regional integration across all five African sub-regions and more than five decades of experience, considering both political and economic aspects. Leading scholars and practitioners come together to analyze a range of entwined topics, including: the theoretical underpinnings that have informed Africa's regional integration trajectory; the political economy of integration, including the sources of different 'waves' of integration in pan-Africanism and the reaction to neo-liberal economic pressures; the complexities of integration in a context of weak states and the informal regionalization that often occurs in 'borderlands'; the increasing salience of Africa's relationships with rising extra-regional economic powers, including China and India; and comparative lessons from non-African regional blocs, including the EU, ASEAN, and the Southern Common Market. A core argument of this book, running through all chapters, is that region-building must be recognized as a political project as much as if not more than an economic one; successful region-building in Africa will need to include the complex political tasks of strengthening state capacity (including states' capacity as 'developmental states' that can actively engage in economic planning), resolving long-standing conflicts over resources and political dominance, improving democratic governance, and developing trans-national political structures that are legitimate and inclusive.


West Africa's Security Challenges

West Africa's Security Challenges

Author: Adekeye Adebajo

Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 474

ISBN-13: 9781588262844

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Provides a context for understanding West Africa's security dilemmas, highlighting the link between failures of economic development, governance, and democratization on the one hand and military insecurity and violent conflicts on the other.


Nation-States and the Challenges of Regional Integration in West Africa. The case of Liberia

Nation-States and the Challenges of Regional Integration in West Africa. The case of Liberia

Author:

Publisher: KARTHALA Editions

Published: 2010-05-01

Total Pages: 122

ISBN-13: 2811132589

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Of the multitude of challenges facing Liberia as it emerges from a devastating civil conflict, none is more fundamental than the challenge of reconciliation and capacity-building in the context of the country's reintegration into the West Africa sub-region. Such was the finding of a two-day Liberian National Seminar on Regional Integration held in Monrovia on 21-22 January 2008. This book is a compendium of research by Liberians for the seminar, under a project of UNESCO's Department for Human and Social Sciences, which attempts to discuss these and other challenges facing Liberia as the nation emerges from a decade-long upheaval that destroyed most of its human and materila resources. The seminar papers reproduced in this book tackle a range of themes seeking to explain how the African continent's oldest Republic reached this crucial point, and exploring what remains to be done both by the country and by the region before Liberia can fully reintegrate with its neighbouring States within regional structures that are its best bet for securing a peaceful and prosperous future.


West Africa's Trouble Spots and the Imperative for Peace-Building

West Africa's Trouble Spots and the Imperative for Peace-Building

Author: Osita Agbu

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2007-10-15

Total Pages: 116

ISBN-13: 2869784244

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This monograph highlights the necessity for taking preventive measures in the form of peace-building as a sustainable and long-term solution to conflicts in West Africa, with a special focus on the Mano River Union countries. Apart from the Mano River Union countries, efforts at resolving other conflicts in say, Guinea Bissau, Senegal, C?te d'Ivoire and Nigeria, have suffered from a lack of attention on the post-conflict imperatives of building peace in order to ensure that sustainable peace is achieved. Given the often intractable and inter-related nature of conflicts in this region, it argues for the need to revisit the existing mechanisms of conflict resolution in the sub-region with a view to canvassing a stronger case for stakeholders towards adopting the peace-building strategy as a more practical and sustainable way of avoiding wars in the sub-region. Peace-building in consonance with its infrastructure is a more sustainable approach to ensuring regional peace and stability and, therefore, ensuring development for the peoples of West Africa. Dr Osita Agbu is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos. His areas of specialization include Peace and Conflict studies, Governance and Democratization and Technology and Development. He was until recently, a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Developing Economies, Chiba, Japan.


Butabu

Butabu

Author: James Morris

Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1568984138

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This volume examines the complex technique of wet earth construction, as practised in parts of West Africa. It includes a variety of structures, ranging from small huts to mosques, including the mosque at Dougoumba which dates from the 12th century.


Regionalism in Africa

Regionalism in Africa

Author: Daniel C Bach

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-12-22

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1317557204

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Africa, which was not long ago discarded as a hopeless and irrelevant region, has become a new 'frontier' for global trade, investment and the conduct of international relations. This book surveys the socio-economic, intellectual and security related dimensions of African regionalisms since the turn of the 20th century. It argues that the continent deserves to be considered as a crucible for conceptualizing and contextualizing the ongoing influence of colonial policies, the emergence of specific integration and security cultures, the spread of cross-border regionalisation processes at the expense of region-building, the interplay between territory, space and trans-state networks, and the intrinsic ambivalence of global frontier narratives. This is emphasized through the identification of distinctive 'threads' of regionalism which, by focusing on genealogies, trajectories and ideals, transcend the binary divide between old and new regionalisms. In doing so, the book opens new perspectives not only on Africa in international relations, but also Africa’s own international relations. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of African politics, African history, regionalism, comparative regionalism, and more broadly to international political economy, international relations and global and regional governance.