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.

ECOMOG
ECOMOG

Author: Festus Boahen Aboagye

Publisher: Sedco Publishing

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13:

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An extremely well researched account of the peace keeping activities of the ECOMOG Task Force Battalion before and after the electoral process in Liberia in 1997-98. The book covers the following: African settler colonial domination, the politics of settler colonisation, the dilemma of military intervention in politics, the demise of the democratic state structure, initial ECOMOG intervention 1990, political progress and setback, political and military progress, political and military stagnation, the electoral process - June/August 1997, the attributes of a sub-regional peace-keeping force, sub-regional conflict resolution in relation to the UN, the Sierra Leonean conflict, the unfinished quest for lasting peace and problems of withdrawal and consolidation of peace, an overwhelming case for international collaboration, the contribution of Ghana, guideposts and lessons for the future.

ECOWAS and the Dynamics of Conflict and Peace-building
ECOWAS and the Dynamics of Conflict and Peace-building

Author: Thomas Jaye

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 2869784961

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ECOWAS and the Dynamics of Conflict and Peace-building testifies to the fact that we cannot talk of West African affairs, more so of conflict and peace-building, without talking about ECOWAS. For over two decades now, West Africa has remained one of Africa's most conflict-ridden regions. It has been a theatre of some of the most atrocious brutalities in the modern world. It has, nonetheless, witnessed one of the most ambitious internal efforts towards finding regional solutions to conflicts through ECOWAS. The lead role of ECOMOG - the ECOWAS peacekeeping force - in search of peaceful solutions to civil wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau and Cote d'Ivoire has yielded a mix of successes and failures. In this book, the authors take a candid look at the role that ECOWAS has played and show how the sub-regional organisation has stabilised and created new conditions conducive to nation building in a number of cases. Conversely, the book shows that ECOWAS has aggravated, if not created, new tensions in yet other cases. The comparative advantage that ECOWAS has derived from these experiences is reflected in the various mechanisms, protocols and conventions that are now in place to ensure a more comprehensive conflict prevention framework. This book provides a nuanced analysis of the above issues and other dynamics of conflicts in the region. It also interrogates the roles played by ECOWAS and various other actors in the context of the complex interplay between natural resource governance, corruption, demography and the youth bulge, gender and the conflicting interests of national, regional and international players.

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.

The Challenge of Stability and Security in West Africa
The Challenge of Stability and Security in West Africa

Author: Alexandre Marc

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2015-06-19

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 1464804656

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Since independence, the West African sub-region has been an arena for a number of large-scale conflicts and civil wars, as well as simmering and low-intensity uprisings. Contrary to perceptions, West Africa in its post-independence history has experienced fewer conflict events and fatalities from conflict than the other sub-regions on the continent. The turn of the millennium has witnessed the recession of large-scale and conventional conflict, and it has ushered in new and emerging threats. The specters of religious extremism, maritime piracy, and narcotics trafficking threaten to undermine some of the progress achieved in recent years. The Challenge of Stability and Security in West Africa critically examines the key drivers of conflict and violence, and the way in which they impact the countries of the sub-region. In addition to emerging threats, these drivers include the challenges of youth inclusion, migration, sub-regional imbalances, and extractives, as well as challenges related to the fragility of political institutions and managing the competition for power, reform of the security sector, and weakness of institutions related to land management. The book explores how the sub-region, under the auspices of the regional organization ECOWAS, has become a pioneer on the continent in terms of addressing regional challenges. The Challenge of Stability and Security in West Africa also identifies key lessons in the dynamics of resilience in the face of political violence and civil war drawn from CÃ ́te d'Ivoire, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, that can be useful for countries around the world in similar situations. It incorporates knowledge and findings from leading experts and provides insights from academics and development practitioners. Finally, the book identifies possible policy and programmatic responses and directions for policy dialogue at the national and international levels.

Ecowas
Ecowas

Author: Isabel Meyer

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2010-10

Total Pages: 29

ISBN-13: 364071380X

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Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Peace and Conflict Studies, Security, grade: 2,0, University of Duisburg-Essen, course: Seminar "International Relations and Conflict Management in Sub-Saharan Africa", language: English, abstract: Almost ten years ago, on 10 December 1999, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) adopted the Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peace-Keeping and Security and hence passed "probably (...) the most ambitious instrument on the regulation of collective security ever attempted to date" (Abass 2000: 212). After three military interventions in the 1990ies ECOWAS, a purely economically intended community at the beginning, was in need of better legal foundations for its missions. The interventions in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau were largely characterized by political disputes mostly between anglophone and francophone members of ECOWAS, by weak legal foundations and massive shortcomings in financing, training and equipping the military missions. None of the three interventions can be seen as a pure success. There is even a controversy debate whether the ECOWAS interventions might have prolonged instead of shortened the civil wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau (see Howe 1996). The Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peace-Keeping and Security was therefore the attempt to put future ECOWAS interventions on better ground. The outcome was promising, but still bears many deficiancies. Some relate to the provisions made in the Protocol, some relate to the nature of ECOWAS. The sucess or failure of ECOWAS ́ military engagement in securing peace in the region is vital for the all-african efforts to build up regional peace-keeping powers within the framework of the African Union and furthermore for the decentralization of the peacekeeping efforts of the United Nati