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Gulf of Guinea: IMO, ECOWAS Partners to tackle insecurity

April 9, 2021

Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization, IMO, Mr. Kitack Lim

Three organizations have teamed up to tackle the growing insecurity in the Gulf of Guinea which has had negative impacts on trade and other economic activities within the West and Central African territorial waters. The International Maritime Organization, IMO, the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS and The Gulf of Guinea Commission, GGC are currently mulling plans to tackle the menace of pirates and other maritime crime in the Gulf of Guinea.

Disclosing this at the ongoing Global Maritime Security Conference taking place in Abuja, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization, IMO, Mr. Kitack Lim said that Inter-Regional Coordination will provide a framework for strategic action against piracy and armed robbery at sea.

Lim also called on participants not to lose sight of a new maritime security threat of cyber security to shipping adding that the topic should be part of the issues that must be addressed.

Lim who was represented by Assistant Secretary-General, Mr. Lawrence Barchue noted that maritime security is interagency, regional and international cooperation and development of national and regional maritime security strategies.

He said.“In dealing with physical security such as piracy and armed robbery, the increasing threat of cyber security should not be ignored and this has now joined the list of topics being addressed by IMO.

“More recently, the focus of piracy has turned to the African coasts, after significant rise in such activities off Somalia and now the Gulf of Guinea.

“IMO has development guidance on the suppression of piracy for use by both government and ship/operators, which has been supplemented by industry-developed “Best Management Practices’. “Guidance has also been issued on investigating piracy incidents, which calls on using privately contracted armed guard security personnel, leading to international standards being developed by the International Organization for Standardization, ISO.

“However, the security landscape continues to change, which emerging issues that include challenges posed by the embarkation and carriage of armed guards, their weapon and equipment ; more widespread terrorism and violent extremism, the increasing urgent need to address destructive and unsustainable levels of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing as well as trafficking in weapons, drugs, people and illegal wildlife products.

”IMO’s approach is to assist its member states in enhancing their ability to address maritime security challenges, focusing on what the maritime industry, both the shipping and port sectors, can do to protect themselves and for the government to provide the overarching security framework for global maritime trade.

“The Yaounde Code of Conduct which was signed by 22 West and Central African States in June 2013, provides the framework for intra-regional commitment for increased cooperation and capacity building to combat piracy and strengthen the region’s maritime security as well as to tackle maritime crime in its widest sense.

“In furtherance to, IMO continues to support the effort of the Economic Commission of Central African States, ECCAS, Economic Commission of West African States, ECOWAS and the Gulf Guinea Commission, GGC, towards the development and adoption of a comprehensive Joint Regional Maritime Strategy, to effectively fight piracy and related transnational criminal activities in the Gulf of Guinea.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

ECOWAS to Mediate on Trade Dispute of Nigerians in Ghana

August 23, 2020

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is working on finding a lasting solution to the continuous trade disagreements between Nigerian businessmen in Ghana and the Ghanaian authorities. This comes as Nigerians continue to protest against what they termed acts of discrimination against them by the Ghanaian government over the years which if left unattended, may snowball into a more serious confrontations.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama

Assuring on the readiness of the subregional body to Wade into the problem with hope to finding lasting solution, the Director, Microeconomic Analysis, Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, David Adeosun, who was part of the Federal Government’s delegation at the meeting, said ECOWAS is working on the matter.

The invitation of ECOWAS became necessary as Ghanaian officials sealed off the shops belonging to Nigerian traders in Accra for allegedly failing to have the $1m equity stipulated by the Ghana Investment Promotions Council (GIPC).

In response, the Federal Government of Nigeria faulted the closure of the business premises belonging to Nigerians by the Ghanaian authorities, saying it would consider retaliatory actions.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, had stated that the government might drag Ghana to the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States if found to have breached the sub-region’s Protocol of Free Movement of People.

Commenting on the development at the ECOWAS workshop in Abuja, Adeosun assured aggrieved Nigerians that the issue would be deliberated on at the workshop for proper solution.

He said, “I want to believe that this workshop will equally be able to proffer some solutions in terms of this issue. We shouldn’t give room for member states to see themselves as rivals.“Rather, we should work together and complement each other’s efforts to be able to move the sub-region forward. I want to see ECOWAS as a sub-region that surpass European union.”

At the opening session of the workshop, the Vice President, ECOWAS Commission, Finda Koroma, said the heads of state of various governments adopted the ECOWAS Vision 2020 in June 2007 as a roadmap of transformation of the sub-region into a borderless, peace

Koroma, who was represented by the ECOWAS Commissioner for Finance, Halima Ahmed, stated that during the implementation of this vision, remarkable achievements had been recorded by the member states.He noted that since the implementation of Vision 2020 would come to an end in December, ECOWAS and member states in January 2019 started moves for the development of post 2020 Vision, now referred to as ECOWAS Vision 2050.

Observers are of the view that the recent closure is politically motivated as Ghanaian politicians use the closures to wipe up sentiments from their support base back home for support in the upcoming elections.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Okonjo-Iweala Welcomes ECOWAS Endorsing for WTO Director General

June 24, 2020

Nigeria’s former Minister of Finance and one time Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has welcomed as a relief, the endorsement from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for her candidature for the position of Director-General of the World Trade Organisation. It could be recalled that Nigeria had formally nominated Dr Okonjo-Iweala, an economist and also former Managing Director Operations World Bank, for the position for the period 2021-2025.

According to a statement by the chairperson of the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government Mahamadou Issoufou also called on other African countries and non-African countries to support her candidature.“…Since the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 1 January 1995, which is a successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) established on 1 January 1948, no African has assumed the position of Director-General of the Organization,” the statement said in part.

Expressing her appreciation to the ECOWAS, she said in a tweet that : “A big thank you to the Economic Community of West African States @ecowas_cedeao for supporting my candidacy for DG @wto.” While this endorsement is a welcome relief, analysts say that this will definitely pit ECOWAS against other regional groupings across Africa who seem to have accepted African Union’s earlier endorsement of the Egyptian candidate.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

ECOWAS endorses Adesina for 2nd Term as President of the African Development Bank

December 24, 2019

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has endorsed the candidacy of African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina for a second term at the helm of the institution. The decision was announced at the end of the fifty-sixth ordinary session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS, held on Saturday in Abuja, Nigeria.

“In recognition of the sterling performance of Dr. Akinwumi Adesina during his first term of office as President of the African Development Bank, the Authority endorses his candidacy for a second term as the President of the bank,” ECOWAS said in a communique issued after the meeting.

Adesina is the eighth elected President of the African Development Bank Group. He was elected to the five-year term on 28 May 2015 by the Bank’s Board of Governors at its Annual Meetings in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, where the same electoral process will play out next year.

Adesina is a renowned development economist and the first Nigerian to serve as President of the Bank Group. He has served in a number of high-profile positions internationally, including with the Rockefeller Foundation, and was Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development from 2011 to 2015, a career stint that was widely praised for his reforms in the agricultural sector. The former minister brought the same drive to the Bank, making agriculture one of the organization’s priority areas.

Speaking earlier at the opening ceremony, Adesina reminded the group of the African Development Bank’s investments in the region. “You can always count on the African Development Bank – your Bank,” Adesina told delegates.

ECOWAS President Jean-Claude Kassi Brou commended the Bank’s involvement in West Africa and said it had provided “invaluable technical and financial interventions…in the implementation of numerous projects and programmes”.

The ECOWAS summit included a progress report on the region’s economic performance. It noted the role of the African Development Bank in the continent’s transformation and called for greater cooperation in order to fund projects in West Africa.

“The Authority takes note of the region’s improved economic performance, with ECOWAS real GDP growing by 3.3% in 2019 against 3.0% in 2018, in a context characterised by a decline in inflationary pressures and sound public finances,” the statement said.

“It urges the Member States to continue economic reforms and ensure a sound macroeconomic environment in Member States, with a view to accelerating the structural transformation of ECOWAS economies and facilitating the achievement of the monetary union by 2020.”

The Authority commended efforts made on currency and monetary policy convergence in ECOWAS and laid out plans to advance the movement. These efforts are a key part of the regional integration agenda championed by the African Development Bank, as exemplified by the African Continental Free Trade Area, which aims to become the world’s largest free trade zone.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

West African Leaders to Raise $1 Billion for War on Terrorism

September 16, 2019

West African leaders have agreed to work together to tackle the growing menace of terrorism in the sub-region by providing the much needed financial backing to the campaign. As part of this, the leaders pledged the sum of $1 billion to acquire weaponry and provide training assistance to their military. This was made known yesterday in a communiqué signed after their meeting in Ouagadougou Burkina Faso yesterday. The United Nations warned few months ago that Islamist attacks were spreading so fast in West Africa that the region should consider bolstering its response beyond current military efforts.

Speaking on the development, The President of Republic of Niger Mahamadou Issoufou said that ECOWAS has decided that it is time to take the issue of spiraling banditry and terrorism in the region serious and to match words with action, the member countries have decided to finance the project by contributing 1 billion dollars to the financing of the joint forces and to the reinforcement of the operational capabilities and of state intelligence.

The pledge which is to be funded from 2020 to 2024 was announced on Saturday at the end of the Economic Community Summit of West African States (ECOWAS) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

Groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State have strengthened their foothold across the arid Sahel region this year, making large swathes of territory ungovernable and stoking local ethnic violence, especially in Mali and Burkina Faso.

The fifteen members of the West African bloc and the presidents of Mauritania and Chad had gathered for an extraordinary summit in Burkina Faso’s capital to address the growing insecurity.

President of Republic of Niger Mahamadou Issoufou

President Issoufo blamed the international community for the crisis saying that they are the cause of the Libyan crisis and the Libyan crisis is responsible for the banditry across the Sahel and the Lake Chad basin, thus the need for the region to rise to the occasion and tackle the situation headlong. He added that the Sahel region and Lake Chad expected a bigger contribution in the fight against radical Islamists from the international community which he said caused the Libyan crisis that was putting pressure on the region.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.

ECO: As West Africa Takes the Single Currency Plunge

July 10, 2019

Analysts have started exploring opportunities inherent in the proposed single currency for the West African region; The Eco. It could be recalled that leaders of the 15 member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) met in Abuja, Nigeria, and formally agreed on the name of the planned common currency the “ECO” The currency according to a release from ECOWAS Secretariat Abuja, would be based on a flexible exchange rate regime, coupled with a monetary policy framework focused on tackling inflation.

Observers say there seems to be a sense of urgency in this latest efforts, maybe being buoyed by the recently signed Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCTA). This is because the target launch date for Eco has been postponed several times; in 2005, 2010 and 2014; since the concept first arose in 2003. Now the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is planning to launch the currency in 2020, with member states agreeing to name it the ‘ECO’ there seem to be a new sense of urgency.

Reports indicate that governments in the region are keen on more integration and a single currency will facilitate trade, lower transaction costs, and payments amongst ECOWAS’ 385 million people.

Currently, eight of ECOWAS countries i.e. Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo jointly use the CFA franc while the remaining six members have their own independent currencies.

Some analysts are of the view that the single currency if properly implemented will improve trade by allowing specific countries to specialize at what they are good at, and exchange it for other goods that other countries in the bloc produce more efficiently.”

A report by the African Development Bank Group (Afdb) indicates that the 2020 deadline for the single currency will most like be postponed again unless the region can align with its monetary and fiscal policies.

Countries are required to meet a ten convergence criteria, set out by the West African Monetary Institute (WAMI), by the 2020 deadline. The primary four beings: a budget deficit of not more than 3%, an average annual inflation rate of less than 10%, Central Bank financing of budget deficits should be no more than 10% of the previous year’s tax revenue and gross external reserves worth at least three months of imports.

The six secondary criteria to be achieved by each member country are: Prohibition of new domestic default payments and liquidation of existing ones, tax revenue should be equal to or greater than 20 percent of the GDP, wage bill to tax revenue equal to or less than 35 percent, public investment to tax revenue equal to or greater than 20 percent, a stable real exchange rate and a positive real interest rate.

However, reports indicate that although countries may meet the criterion by the deadline they fall behind thereafter thus posing the main difficulty in inconsistencies.

As at today, only five countries, viz; Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Senegal and Togo of the region’s fifteen countries currently meet the single currency’s criteria of a budget deficit not higher than 4% and inflation rates of not more than 5%, as noted by Charlie Robertson, chief global economist at Renaissance Capital.

Additionally, while ECOWAS says the integration will be gradual as countries meet the criteria, it’s unlikely that a 2020 launch date is feasible as there is no significant progress in the design, production, and testing of the currency notes.

Given that various economies in the region are at “dramatically different levels of development,” the leadership of ECOWAS is being unrealistic in both its timing for the currency’s launch and expectations of what it might achieve, Robertson says. “You’ve got very different levels of debt, interest rates, and budget deficits. Trying to align these countries to operate as one is extremely difficult,” he says. “What currency policy is right for two such divergent countries like saying Ghana and Burkina Faso?”

There is also the glaring disparity in the economic size of Nigeria in the region. For example, Nigeria is 67% of ECOWAS’ GDP, so really this isn’t a single currency for 15 countries, this is the Nigerian Naira plus a few countries.

How the leaders hope to close all these gaps between now and next year remains to be seen.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.

Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/Afrikanheroes/

How AfCFTA Will Impact Africa’s Economies

July 9, 2019

With the launch of Sunday of a continental free-trade zone in Africa, leaders of 54 nations have created on paper, which is regarded as the largest free trade zone in the world. Encompassing 1.3 billion people, and the potential to create a $3.4 trillion economic bloc.

After four years of talks, an agreement to form a 55-nation trade bloc was reached in March, paving the way for the launch earlier this week at the African Union Summit in Niger where Ghana was announced as the host of the trade zone’s future headquarters and discussions were held on how exactly the bloc will operate.

It is hoped that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) – the largest since the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1994 – will help unlock Africa’s long-stymied economic potential by boosting intra-regional trade, strengthening supply chains and spreading expertise.

“The eyes of the world are turned towards Africa,” Egyptian President and African Union Chairman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said at the summit’s opening ceremony.

“The success of the AfCFTA will be the real test to achieve the economic growth that will turn our people’s dream of welfare and quality of life into a reality,” he said.

Africa has much to catch up with: its intra-regional trade accounted for just 17% of exports in 2017 versus 59% in Asia and 69% in Europe, and Africa has missed out on the economic booms that other trade blocs have experienced in recent decades.

Economists say significant challenges remain, including poor road and rail links, large areas of unrest, excessive border bureaucracy and petty corruption that have held back growth and integration.

Members have committed to eliminating tariffs on most goods, which will increase trade in the region by 15-25% in the medium term, but this would more than double if these other issues were dealt with, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates.

The IMF in a May report described the free-trade zone as a potential “economic game changer” of the kind that has boosted growth in Europe and North America, but it added a note of caution. Reducing tariffs alone is not sufficient, it said.

Africa already has an alphabet soup of competing and overlapping trade zones – ECOWAS in the west, EAC in the east, SADC in the south and COMESA in the east and south.

But only the EAC, driven mainly by Kenya, has made significant progress toward a common market in goods and services.

These regional economic communities (REC) will continue to trade among themselves as they do now. The role of AfCFTA is to liberalize trade among those member states that are not currently in the same REC, said Trudi Hartzenberg, director at Tralac, a South Africa-based trade law organization.

The zone’s potential clout received a boost when Nigeria, the largest economy in Africa, agreed to sign the agreement at the summit. Benin has also since agreed to join. Fifty-four of the continent’s 55 states have now signed up, but only about half of these have ratified.
One obstacle in negotiations will be the countries’ conflicting motives.

For undiversified but relatively developed economies like Nigeria, which relies heavily on oil exports, the benefits of membership will likely be smaller than others, said John Ashbourne, senior emerging markets economist at Capital Economics.

Nigerian officials have expressed concern that the country could be flooded with low-priced goods, confounding efforts to encourage moribund local manufacturing and expand farming.

In contrast, South Africa’s manufacturers, which are among the most developed in Africa, could quickly expand outside their usual export markets and into West and North Africa, giving them an advantage over manufacturers from other countries, Ashbourne said.

The vast difference in countries’ economic heft is another complicating factor in negotiations. Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa account for over 50% of Africa’s cumulative GDP, while its six sovereign island nations represent about 1%.

“It will be important to address those disparities to ensure that special and differential treatments for the least developed countries are adopted and successfully implemented,” said Landry Signe, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Africa Growth Initiative.

The summit also saw the launch of a digital payments system for the zone and instruments that will govern rules of origin and tariff concessions, as well as monitor and seek to eliminate non-tariff obstacles to trade, the African Union said.

While this is a good start, a lot is still left undone, or to be addressed.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.

Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/Afrikanheroes/

What West African New Currency Means For West African Businesses

July 1, 2019

West African businesses can now benefit from seamless trading across West African borders. This is because the Heads of State and Government of countries in the region have finally adopted ECO as the name of the single currency to be issued in January 2020.

Here Are Things To Know About The New Currency

The currency would fully be in use from January 2020.
The currency would be used for trade across West African countries.
The ECO will work this way: shops, hotels, and restaurants, particularly in the larger cities in Ghana, for instance, may now display prices in both the Ghanaian Cedi and ECO currency and many are likely to accept payment in ECO. However, as the official currency is Ghanaian Cedi, no establishment is under no obligation to accept payment in any other currency apart from Cedi.
Consequently, the introduction of ECO may serve as an alternative to the legal tenders in the countries of West Africa who have met all the requirement to start using ECO.
In simple terms, for people living in Nigeria, this means that you can now carry, in addition to Naira, ECO, and ECO can be used to buy or sell anywhere in Nigeria as long as the other party is willing to accept so.
The West African Monetary Agency, the body of ECOWAS in charge of money and finance across the region has said the currency would be based on a flexible exchange rate regime, coupled with a monetary policy framework focused on checking inflation.

In Which Countries Can You Use The Currency?

The currency can be used across the whole of West African countries from January 2020. However, ECO would be used only in the countries that have met the requirement for its use. That is, for any country in the West African sub-region to start using ECO, it must first meet the following requirements:

It must have a single-digit inflation rate at the end of each year
It must have a fiscal deficit (liabilities) of no more than 4% of the GDP
Its central bank must have deficit-financing of no more than 10% of the previous year’s tax revenues
The country’s gross external reserves must give import cover for a minimum of three months.

Additionally, each country must:

Prohibit new domestic default payments and liquidate existing ones. (That is, all domestic debts must be paid off first)
Have a tax revenue base which should be equal to or greater than 20 percent of the GDP.
Have its wage bill to tax revenue equal to or less than 35 percent.
Have its public investment to tax revenue equal to or greater than 20 percent.
Have a stable real exchange rate.
Have a positive real interest rate.

Right now, it appears Ghana is the only country in West Africa that has met all of the above requirements.

“The single currency for 2020 vision is: let’s find two, three or four countries that are ready. Once they meet up, we follow through with the others cascading in,” said Ken Ofori-Atta, Ghana’s finance minister, at a meeting of West African ministers in Accra recently.

The seriousness of the ECOWAS leaders on ECO is buried in this communique issued after the 55th Ordinary Session in Abuja:

‘‘The single currency would be issued in Jan. 2020.’’ the communique reads. “We have not changed that but we will continue with assessment between now and then. We are of the view that countries that are ready will launch the single currency and countries that are not yet ready will join the programme as they comply with all six convergence criteria.”

The leaders also instructed the commission to work with West African Monetary Institute and the central banks to accelerate the implementation of the revised roadmap with regard to the symbol of the single currency.

“It [the communique]further directs the commission to ensure implementation of the recommendations of the meeting of the ministerial committee held in Abidjan on June 17 and June 18 as well as preparation and implementation of the Communication Strategy for the single currency programme. The Authority takes note of the 2018 macroeconomic convergence report. It noted the worsening of the macroeconomic convergence and urges member states to do more to improve on their performance in view of the imminent deadline.”

The Benefit of Using The New Currency

Most of the eight currencies used in the 15 countries of the West Africa region are not convertible. Convertibility is defined as the possibility to freely exchange a country’s currency for foreign currencies. Where they are convertible, their rates are highly volatile ($2 in the morning, $5 dollars in the afternoon) Hence, ECO will help to address the issue of multiple currencies and exchange rate fluctuations that affect intra-regional trade.
West African countries have the least developed financial sectors in the world. The ratio of bank credit to GDP there is very low. There is no much money in their financial markets, through which money can easily flow across the region. Unlike the Eurozone where payment can be made and settled by banks using Euros and cheques. Payment and settlement systems in several West African economies are still marked by the predominance of cheques in noncash payments. In 2013, for instance, the whole money available in the West African regional market only represented 13% of GDP of the whole of the West African countries put together — this is like 8.5% of GDP for Ghana and 21% for Nigeria, against an average of about 65% for Sub-Saharan Africa. Hence, ECO will open up the market a bit.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.