GIABA, and Why Ghana must support ratification of 2005 protocol establishing CIIB in West Africa

The GIABA Meeting should remind Ghana to support ratification of 2005 protocol establishing Criminal Investigative Intelligence Bureau for West Africa

'The Accidental Ecowas & AU Citizen':
By E.K.Bensah Jr

In February 2013, I wrote a piece entitled 'Where is the ECOWAS Sahel Strategy to Secure & Protect West Africa from Criminals? In October 2012, I penned an article entitled 'Mission: ECOWAS has a responsibility to protect West Africa from Criminals.' It summarized and reprised arguments from previous articles I had written about ECOWAS and its responsibility to secure the sub-region.

Back in October 2011, I wrote yet-again another, entitled 'Time for ECOWAS to Ratify the Criminal Investigative Intelligence Bureau'. The idea behind the piece was to argue that free movement is great for the ECOWAS sub-region, but comes at a cost - cross-border crime. The provision of free movement is possible thanks to the Protocol on Free Movement, Right of Residence and Establishment which was adopted in 1979. In 1980, ECOWAS members would ratify the first phase of the Protocol guaranteeing free entry of citizens from member states without visa for ninety days.

I also touched on how West African leaders, working through ECOWAS, had made significant strides on combating drug trafficking, crime; and what I described as 'all the attendant vices associated with un-policed porous borders'

ECOWAS structures for securing peace GIABA included!

At the sub-regional level, ECOWAS has a number of structures that are helping rein in what might otherwise be a chaotic sub-region. These include the ECOWAS Regional Action Plan on illicit drugs trafficking, organized crime and drug abuse; ECOWAS Committees of Chiefs of Security Services, and Chiefs of Defence Staff; WAPCCO; and GIABA.

Backed by the Canada-based 'The Pearson Peacekeeping Centre', the ECOWAS Committee of Chiefs of Security Services has assisted ECOWAS since May 2009 to create a committee that ensures proper communication and coordination efforts with member states on the police component of the African Standby Force and other regional security issues. The committee is now funded by the ECOWAS Commission's regular annual budget and meets twice a year.

The ECOWAS Committee of Chiefs of Defence Staffan exclusively military componentreviews security in the sub-region through quarterly meetings. The most recent meeting was some two weeks ago when they met to discuss the character of the African-led International Force in Mai (AFISMA).

The ECOWAS agency that is the Intergovernmental Action Group against Money-Laundering, or GIABA, is responsible for the prevention and control of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in the West African Sub-Region. Critical to its mandate is the 'improvement of measures and intensifying efforts to combat the laundering of proceeds of crime in West Africa'. Incidentally, GIABA happens to be one of the ECOWAS agencies associated with Kofi Annan's newly-established West Africa Commission on the Impact of Drugs on Governance, Security and Development (WACD).

ECOWAS's formulation of a regional response through their Political Declaration of 2005 (that put forward the idea of establishing a criminal investigative intelligence bureau) has helped nip the problem in the bud. However, considering the fact that that the Criminal Investigative Intelligence Bureau (CIIB) had been proposed as far back as 2002 by Ghana for a meeting of the INTERPOL-backed West Africa Police Chiefs Committee (WAPCCO) in Abidjan, the challenge would have been better dealt with had member states resolved to establish the-said CIIB.

While ECOWAS community citizens continue to enjoy free movement in the sub-region, this is a region that has played host to internecine conflicts especially in the Mano River Union, such as the Liberian conflict of 1990 that prompted the intervention of ECOMOG. I wrote back in October 2011, 'add to that the porous border, the free movement of mercenaries, coupled with small arms trafficking and the recruitment of child soldiers and fighters to the cross-border crimes and we have ourselves a potential powder-keg that needs significant monitoring through significant systems of intelligence - as proposed by the yet-to-be-ratified CIIB'.

Although the intensity of the Mali conflict has died down - at least away from the glare of the media - there is no gainsaying that 2013 continues to be a year in which ECOWAS has not completed its work in Northern Mali; neither done with piracy nor the Sahel crisis. These are new elements forcing ECOWAS to take the bull by the horns on factoring not just the visceral peace and security instruments it is so used to, but a law-enforcement perspective that is sufficiently holistic to secure and protect West Africans from criminals and miscreants.

Way Forward for ECOWAS
At a time when African integration observers are talking of both the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) and a putative Arab Maghreb Union (AMU)-ECOWAS-CENSAD free trade area (along the lines of the tripartite COMESA-EAC-SADC free-trade area), this second FTA is unlikely to go anywhere quickly without ECOWAS getting very serious on distinguishing between what I would call 'hard'(war; drug-trafficking; human-trafficking) and 'soft'(cross-border and petty crime) conflict. 

It is very encouraging to read of Joint Border Patrols in the sub-regionas prescribed by the INTERPOL-backed West African Police Chiefs Committee. A recent conference by the Mano River Union countries only two weeks ago that was held in Liberia re-visited the idea of Joint Border Patrols as a way of securing their borders. Coming from a micro-region that served as a catalyst for ECOWAS' first-ever intervention in West Africa under ECOMOG, this can only be good news that West Africa is capable of managing its own affairs.


I continue to press that ECOWAS might not have had the foresight of establishing a West African law enforcement mechanism (like the EU did with EUROPOL with respect to the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992) the very moment the Treaty of Lagos was revised in 1993 to reflect the current challenges of ECOWAS, but it can never be too late, I wrote in October 2011, 'to rectify the imperative of a sub-regional police force along the likes of INTERPOL or EUROPOL'. ECOWAS's imperative and comparative strengths on peace, security, and conflict prevention ought to give it the necessary impetus to bring to fruition the belated 'ECOWASPOL'/CIIB the sub-region so desperately needs to secure the region for its citizens.

In 2009, in his capacity as a 'Do More Talk Less Ambassador' of the 42nd Generationan NGO that promotes and discusses Pan-Africanism--Emmanuel gave a series of lectures on the role of ECOWAS and the AU in facilitating a Pan-African identity. Emmanuel owns "Critiquing Regionalism" (http://critiquing-regionalism.org). Established in 2004 as an initiative to respond to the dearth of knowledge on global regional integration initiatives worldwide, this non-profit blog features regional integration initiatives on MERCOSUR/EU/Africa/Asia and many others. You can reach him on ekbensah@ekbensah.net / Mobile: +233-268.687.653.



Source: Emmanuel K. Bensah Jr.

Story from Modern Ghana News:
http://www.modernghana.com/news/463880/1/giaba-and-why-ghana-must-support-ratification-of-2.html 

Enter the Chad Dragon in the ECOWAS-CENSAD region!

Back in October 2011, my piece “Hot Issues on the AU needing popular advocacy (I) – or Travelling Cheaply in Africa, & Southern Sudan” touched briefly on CENSAD. I started off with a history of CENSAD, going on to ask the way forward.

The Community of Sahel-Saharan States was established in 1998 by the late Colonel Qaddafi. After the rationalization of the regional economic communities in 2006, it became an AU-REC – that is one of the eight RECs mandated and recognized by the African Union. It has twenty-eight members, and Ghana is a member.

Despite many meetings that had taken place and a then-fully-functioning website on http://www.censad.org, the uprising that started in Libya in March threw a huge spanner in the works of the organisation, effectively throwing the regional grouping out of sync with the other RECs at its base in Tripoli. Regrettably, the conspicuous absence of the African Union itself on the future of CENSAD has not helped dispel the notion that the AU is nothing more than a “toothless” bulldog.

The passing of Qaddafi, I intoned, has effectively taken the wind out of the sails of CENSAD, probably throwing all the good work – including the Great Green Wall being built along the sub-region to protect the region from climate change; as well as the establishment of a free-trade area of ECOWAS-UEMOA-CENSAD/ECOWAS-CENSAD/ECCAS along the likes of the SADC-COMESA-EAC tripartite free trade area, which was mooted in 2008.

Going forward, I would expect to see the AU taking serious the need to engage the National Transitional Council in Libya on their commitments to the African Union. This would include discussions on Libya and where it stands on the establishment of the AU-mandated and Tripoli-hosted African Investment Bank, as well as the state of play of CEN-SAD, and how it can be factored into discussions of Africa’s ongoing discussions over Africa’s integration.

In January 2013, an organisation by the name of Centre 4S, which is based in Morocco, and which researches defence and security in the Sahelo-Saharian band /strip; armed violence and terrorism, among other subjects, released a paper in French entitled “Revitaliser le CENSAD”, or reinvigorating CENSAD.

The main idea of the paper is to look at the critical role CENSAD can play in the Sahel; ways in which cooperation and synergy can be created around the zone, and ways in which there can be strengthened cross-border cooperation.

Truth be told, the uniqueness of CENSAD is in its ability to merge ECOWAS; Arab Maghreb Union and ECCASS countries together. The article maintains that the contribution that CENSAD offers its member states ought to be re-examined. Furthermore, the crisis in Mali has set an important precedent for the member states to really get serious on what can be done to use the body as a tool for securing the region politically and diplomatically.

The paper states that “CENSAD should present itself as an institutional and diplomatic framework, of unity and action, capable of formulating a pertinent response, inclusive and varied, to current security challenges.” Even more important for a reinvigorated and re-launched CENSAD should be the aspiration to complement ECOWAS and the Arab Maghreb Union, especially as they are two RECs most-familiar with the security deficits of the Sahel region. These efforts will “equally allow for a better coherence and coordination of different initiatives on the Sahel”, such as Algeria’s Joint Military Command with Mali; Niger; and Mauritania.

Chad rising, Chad in ECOWAS?

Chad is a Central African country and a member of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). Some wonder why it should not also become a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) According to one Elvis Kodjo, writing in fratmat.info, 'although the idea has not been officially announced, the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Moussa Mahamat Dago indicated on 19 January 2012 in Abidjan during a celebration of Chad's 50th anniversary that the issue was currently being considered.”

The idea for joining rests with the fact that Chad has emerged from several decades of unrest, and understands “more than any other African country that “African integration is necessary for its development”.

The fact is that since the start of oil production in 2005, “Chad has become the ninth largest African oil producer and has improved its network of roads, which has expanded from 200 to more than 3 000 km. Plans for a new, ultramodern airport are underway, and a railroad linking the country to Cameroon will soon be constructed”. Kodjo maintains that “while being a veritable construction site, Chad also has forty million hectors of arable land”.

In order to encourage the effective use of this land, the Ministry Of Foreign Affairs spokesman Mahamat has said that the country “has equipped itself with a particularly attractive investment code” and is looking to secure the best opportunities for itself by diversifying its economic partners in both Central and West Africa.

In March 2011, Chad was, in fact, granted observer status of ECOWAS and my monitoring of Chad's wooing suggests that Chadian President Idris Deby is still keen on sweet-talking Jonathon—in his capacity as leader of the regional hegemon, Nigeria—to accept Chad as a full member of ECOWAS. In April 2012, I was quick to speculate that it is unlikely to happen soon, given the instability in the Sahel region and the headaches of Mali and Guinea-Bissau. All that can be said for now is for observers to keep a keen eye on Chad making “incursions” into ECOWAS sooner than later.

Then Mali happens. And suddenly, we are confronted with a Chad that is offering support to the Africa-led support mission in Mali (AFISMA) to the tune of around 3000 troops, which is around a third of what all ECOWAS troops have offered.

One of the reasons why Chad is an important country to look out for is for what happened on Saturday 16 February when Chad’s president Idris Deby hosted some eleven leaders of the CENSAD regional economic community that was established in 1998. The capital N’djamena played host to what should have been 20 members of the populous grouping. Even if a little over a third of the Heads of State showed up, it was encouraging to see that the 17 other member states dispatched representatives. Furthermore, it has shown that the raison d’être for the establishment of the grouping might still be relevant.

Some of the major outcomes include a revision of the Charter, to reflect the fact that the organisation is interested in two major things: peace and security; and sustainable development. Two permanent organs will be established to this end, and Egypt is likely to host the peace and security organ.

As this is a developing story, with much of the material in French, watch this space over the next couple of weeks when the implications of a rising Chad will begin to unfold. For what it is worth, CENSAD’s next meeting will be in Morocco, which is itself making overtures to re-join the African Union.

In April 2012, I wrote of how there is talk of an ECCAS-ECOWAS-CENSAD free trade area along the likes of the Tripartite FTA (T-FTA) of SADC-COMESA-EAC that was mooted in 2008. With Central Africa only last week meeting and seeking concretely to rationalise its programmes for ECCAS and CEMAC to harmonise and merge, it is really exciting times for African integration!

ENDs

In 2009, in his capacity as a “Do More Talk Less Ambassador” of the 42^nd Generation—an NGO that promotes and discusses Pan-Africanism--Emmanuel gave a series of lectures on the role of ECOWAS and the AU in facilitating a Pan-African identity. Emmanuel owns "Critiquing Regionalism" (http://www.critiquing-regionalism.org). Established in 2004 as an initiative to respond to the dearth of knowledge on global regional integration initiatives worldwide, this non-profit blog features regional integration initiatives on MERCOSUR/EU/Africa/Asia and many others. You can reach him on ekbensah@ekbensah.net / Mobile: +233.268.687.653.

While CARICOM is on my Mind, Meet the S-G La Rocque!

For the past couple of weeks, I've been getting "Google ALerts" on CARICOM, and almost always, it is something negative about CARICOM.

Apart from the fact that CARICOM made a statement supporting the rebels of the TNC in Libya, I continue to question the real relevance of CARICOM in the Caribbean region. Not because it does not count--far from it--but what exactly it is doing to assert itself these days.

I read that they have a new secretary-general--by name La Rocque. He has vowed, as per this article here, to do quite a number of things to dynamise CARICOM, including cutting down on international travel and using video-conferencing instead! Secondly, "overtime" is out of the window.

You would think that for an organisation that has been around since 1973, they would have a lot more going for them than free movement and a Caribbean Single Market Economy scheme. CARICOM turned 38 on 1st August, but I sense that it is difficult to really speculate on what concretely it might be remembered for. Even on free movement, I read that it is only a few days ago that a press release issued stated that Jamaicans can now travel hassle-free. This has come as a result of "incidences" involving Jamaicans -- apparently! How miscreants from a member state might affect the region's free movement is beyond me -- but that is just me.

I do not for any second want to castigate CARICOM or even compare it with ECOWAS or SADC (comparable only by member countries, where ECOWAS has 15 and SADC 14). But I am still itching to compare the free movement system currently in CARICOM and ECOWAS.

ECOWAS has had free movement of its citizens since 1979. Regrettably that has meant that during the inter-necine wars of Liberia(affecting the Mano River Union countries of Liberia/Sierra Leone/Cote d'ivoire/Guinea) of the early nineties, it meant that (child) soldiers and mercenaries could move freely through the sub-region's porous borders, as well reside in ECOWAS member states for minimum ninety-days without hindrance. That ECOWAS member states have yet to fully ratify supplementary protocols associated with free movement, including setting up committees to monitor free movement (no country has done that yet!) speaks to the considerable work on free movement ECOWAS still needs to do.

CARICOM, conversely, seems to be working hard, albeit slowly.

I cannot foresee, in the 21st century, any regional integration project that underplays free movement; it just does not work. So I want to implore that given Caribbean countries are small, and that they have the CSME working better for  them than what might be here in the ECOWAS sub-region, they get serious on the regional integration project of helping them manage globalisation and its many adverse impacts.

Statements supporting Libyan rebels are curious--at a time when even the African Union has been very slow to recognise them--and interesting: they will not make CARICOM grow to be the community it can become, so CARICOM, more grease to your elbows after your 38th anniversary on 1st August this year. But, surely, you can do better?

As to whether La Rocque can be the saviour to CARICOM observers want, we live in vain expectation!

ECOWAS-COMESA Relations Make Progress

When the visiting ambassador from the East African Community, Julius Onen, to the ECOWAS Commission on 24 July 2007 called ECOWAS the putative "mother of all communities", some might have believed this to be a rather bombastic statement, but when I had the priviledge of interviewing--on the sidelines of a mining workshop, hosted by TWN-Africa, AU Commission, ECOWAS, and the UNECA--Professor Ndongo of the West Africa Civil Society Forum(WACSOF)and him having disclosed to me that even without Dr.Chambas as Head of ECOWAS (as he now goes off to Brussels to head the ACP Secretariat), the ECOWAS machine would still run smoothly, I got the impression that despite the numerous challenges still dogging ECOWAS, it must be getting something right.

So when I read that no less than the Secretariat of COMESA was entertaining some ECOWAS chaps over at their Secretariat, I as more than chuffed about the potential collaboration that can come out of that.

In tones reminiscent of the collaboration I have referred to many a time on this blog, it was interesting to read that the two RECS are keen to strengthen their Regional Business Councils; "Women in Business, Agricultural Development and Food Security, Trading for Peace, Customs Issues, the Common External Tariff and Free Trade Areas..." among many other areas.

The article maintains:

At the end of the visit, an Aide Memoire was signed between the two sides sealing a commitment to collaborate in areas identified during the visit to enhancing private sector development and overall regional integration. The COMESA Director for Trade, Customs and Monetary Affairs, Mr.. Francis Mangeni, signed on behalf of the COMESA Secretariat, while Mr. Alfred Braimah signed on behalf of the ECOWAS Commission.

I guess seeing more of this is a sure way of facilitating a more progressive outlook on regional integration!

AFRICAN UNION--Quote of the Day: African Union & its Symbolic Dimension of African unity

Africa Union HQ in Ethiopia

SOURCE: African Regional Integration and the Role of the European Union
by Professor Dr. Ludger Kühnhardt, pp.6-7
download it here: http://se1.isn.ch/serviceengine/FileContent?serviceID=ISN&fileid=E190DB75-79B8-EA1F-1D4A-952750F4E8AA&lng=en

For the past few days, I've been reading round the theories that make regional integration what it is; as well as browsing through some papers written by students and whatnot about what makes African regional integration. I came across this source by Professor Kuhnhardt, and think the following is a quotation worth noting:

It may well be that eventually it will not be the African Union but the most advanced and deep sub-regional groupings – the building blocs of an African Economic Community – that may become African equivalents of the European Union. The African Union may continue to serve the prime objective of promoting African unity as a matter of identity and the external projection of African claims. But while the African Union may continue to represent the symbolic dimension of African unity, some of the building blocs of sub-regional groupings in Africa may evolve into the strong representatives of deep region-building.

The good professor goes on to add that so far it is ECOWAS and SADC that are "the most successful examples of deepened integration among sub-regional groupings on the African continent." He adds that the "re-born" East African Community could follow close behind, making the latter three the "advanced and comprehensive regional groupings in today's Africa."

Finally, he adds, "they may eventually mature into the African equivalents of the European Union -- supranational entities hold together and advanced by a common body of legislature and a multi-level system of governance."

Perhaps his biggest prediction ever is this:

In turn, the African Union may develop into a hybrid of the Council of Europe,
the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations – a collective security organ defined by the quest for a common identity and its global recognition.

ECOWAS/ARAB LEAGUE--Once Again, the New Year brings the Regional to the Fore: Palestine & Guinea: A Tale of Two Countries

[I wrote this post on 27th and 29th December, 2008. I post it for general consumption]

Once again, the spectre of a coup has regrettably loomed large in the ECOWAS country of Guinea, prompted by the demise of Lansana Conte. Thankfully, once again, the visceral desire to find a regional response has been omnipresent in the minds of African Union (AU) diplomats.

Speaking to the BBC on Christmas Eve from here in Accra, Ghana, ECOWAS Commission Chief Dr.Mohammed Ibn Chambas not only categorically condemned the coup, but went further to add that ECOWAS would be a "critical element" in the search for solutions for Guinea.

In contrast, the conspicuous absence of any regional organisation in any attempt of a resolution to the crisis in Gaza, where 300 people have been killed by airstrikes the last week of the year, in my view, points either to a lack of faith on the Arab League--or lack of any regional organisation in the first place!

Can we surmise that the strong influence of the US in the Middle East makes null and void any desire either by the Palestinians or Israelis to pursue a regional solution. Talk of any solution in the crisis always seems to reside on the UN or a US-based solution, prompting personal speculation that the Middle East (playing host to the Gulf Cooperation Council and Arab League) does not seem to have any sense of the regional. The lack of consultations of these regional bodies can only unwittingly render them toothless.

Back to Guinea, one cannot help but wonder how distinctive the comparison is. In that country, the 15-member ECOWAS stepped in straight away not just to condemn the coup but initiate moves to resolve the crisis by forming a delegation that would be Conakry-bound and appeal to the coup-makers to remember that the Guinean constitution remains alive.

On 29th December, news came in that the 53-member AU has suspended Guinea -- until it gets its constitutional house in order.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Dear regionswatcher,

I guess I should have started off by wishing all of u a profoundly prosperous and progressive new Year ahead.

I want to thank all of you for your continued patronage. That said, I want to single out TWN's Riaz T for the very constructive criticism he offered for the blog.

It is indeed a new year, and with it come fresh ideas, mixed with the working old ones. Some of the newbies here include the fact that you can now get to this blog by simply going to:

http://www.critiquing-regionalism.org.

RegionsWatch was born 5 yrs ago -- and better things are to come, with the formal launching of the new site in March.

For now, though, I want to remind you that if you missed my following of the ACP Summit on this blog, you can go to the blog and check under October to follow the entries. A technical hitch prevented you all from obtaining deep insights as the conference went on. I hope you can check it out.

RegionsWatch is a passion, and long will it continue. From ECOWAS in Guinea-Conakry to the timerous Arab League, this blog will always be clear about one thing:

there will ALWAYS be a regional solution.

Happy New Year!
___sent: e.k.bensah (OGO device)+233.208.891.841/ekbensah@ekbensah.net

These words brought to you by Ogo.

SADC--Mbeki's other Headache: Getting SADC to Get More Proactive on Peacekeeping Force

As if Mbeki doesn't have enough on his plate with issues on Zimbabwe, BusinessDay reports that in the upcoming weekend, SADC ministers will meet to plan for the activation of a SADC regional peacekeeping force, which has already been mooted since August 2007. The objective of the meeting, really, is to brainstorm on how it can begin to deploy on peacekeeping missions.

The meeting in Durban--to be chaired by Angola--will take recommendations for a SADC summit next month when President Mbeki is "expected to take over the chairmanship" of tyhe 14-member SADC from Jose Eduardo Dos Santos.

Discussions are in the offing also on a regional early warning centre that is scheduled for the end of the year.

More importantly however is the significance of this regional standby force.

By 2010, the African Union plans to have completed an African Stanby Force, with regional standby forces for the regional economic communities (RECS). This falls into line with the AU's protocol on peace and security, "

...which required all regional economic communities to have units that fed into the standby army. So far, the Economic Community of West African States is the other regional bloc that has made the most progress.

It's easy to check that. Only in June this year, a training in Bamako for ECOWAS Standby Force -- codenamed "Jigui 2008" took place, with a Malian logistic sub-command; a Nigerian East Sub Command and a Senegalese West sub command, as well as ECOWAS Staff from the Commission in Abuja.

East Africa established its regional peacekeeping force also in August 2007, with IGAD hoping that it might ease the pressure, what with demands for Darfur.

SAARC--What's SAARC Got to do with India's Latest Serial Bombings?

At a time when Cote d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso as ECOWAS neighbours, are meeting as a way of reconciling after tremendous tensions brought about by the September 2002 coup that saw finger-pointing from Ougadougou that its neighbour supported an abortive coup of Burkina Faso in 2003, it remains a great shame that a number of serial bombings would take place in India only over the weekend, prompting fears that it was a "foreign hand", identified as Pakistan.
A very interesting BBC article above chronicles the number of bombings that have taken place since 2005, listingbthe total number of dead as 400!

So, when I ask--despite a one-month hiatus!![mucho apologies!!!]--what SAARC has got to do with it, it is not without reason.


The example of the two ECOWAS neighbours above shows that reconciliation can take place even without the carrot-and-stick of the EU, or any foreign donor, when there is political will. I do not know ebough about the India-Pakistan conflict to offer anything, except to say that I do know their atavistic conflict has scaled down dramatically. Also, given the rise of India, it is a shame for it to be entertaining terrorists or freedom-fighters of any kind that could harm its prospects for growth.

My concern about it all, really, is just because India is big and has clout, is insufficient reason for it to ignore SAARC. SAARC may be going through some existential angst, but as long as the institution is there, India has every reason to pump resources to support its growth--even for its own interest.

The 2-3 August SAARC Summit in Colombo on Food Security, Terrorism and Energy offer an opportunity to do that--as well as put paid to the tensions that exist between itself and Pakistan.

The BBC has been offering the so-called Insider Debate, with the last one (over the weekend) featuring: Jonathan Powell, Martin Griffiths, Alvaro de Soto and Francesc Vendrell, who have all "[b]etween them...negotiated in most of the world's intractable conflicts".

I daresay most of the four who were interviewed would say that "no conflict is insoluble" and that India must continue to talk to Pakistan.

The article maintains that one of the outcomes of the meeting is:

The SAARC Summit is set to adopt four agreements, including SAARC Development Fund (SDF) with a corpus of $307 million, South Asian Mutual Legal Assistance on Criminal Matters, an agreement on the establishment of the South Asia Regional Standards Organization and a pact for formal entry of Afghanistan into the South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA).

Among the other issues that would be discussed are a fund to manage food crisis, an approach towards SAARC common currency and mechanisms to augment resources in the region to tackle the situation arising out of the fuel price hike.

At the end of the day, for anything concrete to happen, it's about political will. That's the only way of ensuring a progressive perspective on any type of regional integration...

The Africa Unity Day that Wasn’t

By E.K.Bensah II

The last holiday that Ghanaians enjoyed might have gone unnoticed to many in its symbolism purely because they did not understand the significance of it. It is interesting to note on the news wires that even the US government congratulated the African Union(AU) for the celebration of forty-five years of its existence on 25 May. So when in scanning the Ghanaian media, one heard and read almost nothing symbolic about that celebration, it struck me as a worrying trend in our psyche of “Africanness”.

Granted, we do not need a holiday alone to remind ourselves that we are Ghanaian in particular, and Africans in general, but I do wonder whether it animates us sufficiently. For a country that played host to an African Union (AU) summit in June 2007 in the fiftieth anniversary of the country’s history, it is downright unacceptable, in my opinion, that Africa Unity day came and went with a non-existent fanfare.

We can speculate as much as we can—that it is an election year, or that it fell on a Sunday, therefore the media’s antennae were not awakened to the significance of it, and then some. In my view, we have no excuse about the silence, especially at a time when the regional is taking centre stage.

Take the case of Burma and the cyclone that it experienced a few weeks ago. Two weeks ago, British foreign minister and former senior UN official Lord Mark Malloch-Brown toured the region to try to establish whether there could be greater collective Asian/ASEAN response to the disaster. This was important, because the reluctance of the regime suggested that a regional response—translated through the ten-member grouping of the Association of South East Asian countries (ASEAN) – that includes Burma would elicit a more effective response. His efforts proved useful, because ultimately, a Franco-British deal would eventually facilitate ASEAN’s greater role in the disbursement of aid to the victims of the cyclone. All this has come against the backdrop of criticism in some quarters suggesting ASEAN should be disbanded.

One particular article in the *Jakarta Post” entitled “Myanmar disaster challenges ASEAN’s utility” went so far as saying that ASEAN has been lethargic in the manner in which it has been implementing its programmes, including a 2005 Agreement on Disaster Management and Disaster Response that was never signed.

The case is not that much different in this part of the world, where ECOWAS, established since 1975, has, many times, come under some flak for not living up to its agreements. To date, the “real” meaning of ECOWAS integration is debatable, considering the hassles citizens of West Africa—comprising some 230 million—experience traveling through the sub-region.

Food crisis
The challenges notwithstanding, what we can say ECOWAS has done off late is respond regionally to the food crisis that has afflicted much of the developing world.

Last week, the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) agreed to provide $1billion annually to support agricultural productivity in the West Africa sub-region as part of its contribution towards resolving the food crisis. This was part of the outcome of an extraordinary meeting of the regional grouping and their ministers of agriculture, trade and finance. This development has spawned a number of discussions around ECOWAS and the implementation of a common agricultural policy.

Truth be told, it would be as far back as 2005 that the grouping would adopt the ECOWAS Agricultural Policy (ECOWAP). Three years later, its implementation remains moot. According to TRADENET website, in Senegal’s attempt to implement ECOWAP, the country begun putting in place a National Programme of Agricultural Investment. The question now is getting the mqjority of ECOWAS countries adopting the policy.

Imperatives
Any regional grouping learns from demands—or imperatives—that are placed on it. This means that when the Liberian conflict broke out in 1990, ECOWAS was compelled to send troops through its peacekeeping/-enforcement wing of ECOMOG. Today the Labadi-based Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Centre(KAIPTCE) is a testament to the ECOWAS imperative of conflict resolution and prevention. I daresay considering earthquake-struck China’s proximity to the ASEAN region, the grouping’s new imperative could be that of disaster management!

This is the Way Regional Governance Should be Done

In my first Reflections on Regional Integration last year, I mentioned the importance of UN regional commissions playing a greater role in so-called regional governance--whatever form it may be expressed in. In my view, it is about the beginning of a harmonisation process between the regional organisations and the UN, which is so badly-needed.

It is therefore great stuff to read that the West African sub-regional grouping of ECOWAS is seeking to collaborate with the UN's regional commission on Africa, that is better known as UNECA.

Tongues have wagged between the head of these two organisations--Chambas and A Janneh, and it has become clear that they have

reiterated their determination to strengthen the existing partnership between their organisations, with the objective of consolidating the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) as the building bloc for Africa's integration.

We hear so much about the RECS and the RIAs, which are interchangeable terms to describe the regional groupings in their personality as economic entities, that if we are not carefu, we run the risk of being caughtnapping if we don't synergise. And when I talk about "we", I am referring to both citizens and policy-makers.

In my view, any arrangement of this sort that deflects attention away from the work of the UN should revise its note on the work that it does.

While talk is cheap, it is also an expensive enbdeavour for regional organisations to ignore the UN's regional commissions in the pursuit of what often looks like narrow-focused economic ones, which do not necessarily add value to the policies of the region.

That the ECA is intent on supporting ECOWAS towards the realisation nof a Strategic Vision adopted by ECOWAS Heads of State is a good start towards fostering a progressive look at regional integration--the way it should be done!

ASEAN Apathy Bites the Dust with ASEAN Charter?

"ASEAN, as an inter-governmental organization, is hereby conferred legal personality," says the Charter.

According to the Blueprint, the AEC builds on four pillars: a single market and production base, a highly competitive economic region, a region of equitable economic development, and a region fully integrated into the global economy

"When it (the Charter) comes into force, it has the potential to transform ASEAN from a loose grouping of countries into a more cohesive, more effective and a more rules-based organization,"

Even at a time when the South East asian regionalisms attitude towards erring members (viz: Pakistan in SAARC, and Myanmar in ASEAN) could be described as this side short of soporific, I have to confess that I am rather excited by the prospect of an ASEAN Charter. Excited, because it signals the beginning of what can be in the critical and progressive discussion on regional integration. What can be as in what is possible, where others might have failed.

I've intoned time and again how the Europeans rejected the constitution back in 2004, yet ASEAN leaders have managed to chalk, and pass it. As to whether it will translate to the citizens is a moot point.

Whatever the case will be, I believe history will look favourably on the 10-member regional organisation that has a population of 500 million [ECOWAS has 250-300 million, and is fifteen members] for having bitten the bullet to pass the Charter.

Highlights of the Charter include a compulsion by members:

to democracy and protection of human rights, the charter also mandates the establishment of a human rights body in the region and aims to turn the region into an European Union-style market.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/071120/43/6nguj.html

Though I am wont to criticise the EU-one-size-fits-all that many regionalisms touch on at least once in their life, I am avoiding that here, because I think it's time to accentuate the positive step ASEAN has taken.

Let's remember that 4the organisation turned forty only in August this year. It didn't wait for its Jubilee before doing something constructive for its region!


Above all, and in all seriousness, ASEAN wants to use the Charter to facilitate an Asian Economic Community by 2015. Well, deadlines are great. (Isn't the world supposed to eradicate poverty by half by 2015?) What matters is that there is a framework, a structure that can be carried forward by posterity. ASEAN now has legal personality--and that certainly, four decades after it was established, can only be congratulated.

In many respects, however, I can understand why the celebrations over the charter eclipsed the UN envoy to Burma Ibrahim Gambari's visit in a way that made the meeting abortive. Put simply, the meeting didn't happen.

I surmise that not that ASEAN was denying that Myanmar is a nettlesome issue, but that to have brought the UN envoy would have been undermining the cohesion ASEAN tried so hard to fight for in taking more than two years to draft this lofty charter.

I have always been in favour of UN envoys--and it's not going to change anytime soon--but, again, I've seen a similar thing in West Africa with Cote d'ivoire when it launched its coup in September 2002.

ECOWAS also decided not to expel it, but brought pressure to bear through the collective voice of ECOWAS to bring normality to the country through...talk.

For all the necessary noise that the US is making by saying (through Susan Schwab, US trade representative) that ASEAN's relationship with Myanmar cannot be "business as usual", it makes sense that ASEAN is not going to break its party anytime soon! Let it cry when it wants to--but certainly not now that there has been a significant, critical and progressive development in ASEAN's regional integration.


quotations taken from the following links:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/20/content_7115277.htm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/20/content_7114354.htm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/20/content_7115085.htm

Will the ASEAN-OPEC Collaboration Pave Way for Regional Governance?

Given the recent collaborations between regional organisations--ranging from the recent ECOWAS-EAC collaboration to the MERCOSUR-ASEAN one, to the recent ASEAN-OPEC collaboration, you could be forgiven for thinking that the world is slowly and surely moving towards some form of regional governance. I suppose that pre-supposes there to be some form of global governance already. Maybe the two do not have to be mutually exclusive.

Either way, what they do have to do is to make sense for the rest of us. Questions, such as what type of regional governance will we be seeing should probably be the most viscerally-enquiring ones that we should be asking ourselves.

More in context of ASEAN, let me just say that ASEAN is going places. Not just because it is celebrating its fortieth anniversary, but in that celebration, it is seeking to bring to bear on the anniversary constructive outcomes that can benefit the 10-member organisation. For all the controversies over the ASEAN Charter, and whether Myanmar will be the thorn in the flesh in the conception of a rights-based constitution, what is most clear to the average observer is that things are happening, and the ASEAN region is talking to each other candidly about what it needs to do to ensure its citizens are catered for for the future. It is fair to say that ASEAN sees itself as a key player in the region that needs to have a little bit of clout.

It would therefore probably comes as little surprise that some months after the ECOWAS sub-region (allegedly) started its West African Gas Pipeline, and Latin America began talking about a Bank of the South that ASEAN would start talking about pooling its regional energy together--and it's certainly no lean feat!

ASEAN is thinking these big plans:

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations has agreed to form a regional ASEAN power grid. This will serve as a platform for members to trade electricity under a set of harmonised technical rules and regulations.

ASEAN leaders are also scheduled to sign a plan of action in the next two months in Singapore to put a $7-billion Trans ASEAN Gas Pipeline (TAGP) project back on track, Indonesia's energy minister said. ASEAN will also work closely with the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to keep prices in check.

If you think those are big plans, let's try this for good measure: the very fact that they are seeking to collaborate with OPEC to "bring prices in check". For me, this type of collaboration may not just be unprecedented, but an interesting development to underscore how the collaboration underpinning the proverbial "unity is strength" has been chewed,transformed, and spat out into a need to strengthen institutional collaborations world-wide.

It also begs the question of why ECOWAS, in its discussions with the World Bank over the West Africa Gas Pipeline never came up with the idea of linking up with OPEC, considering how critical a country ECOWAS hegemon Nigeria is in the sub-region and the organisation. That CHEVRON has a stake in the WAGP reflects the serious and significant private sector interests that the US has and will continue to have in the region.

Then again, you didn't need me to tell you that; it might have been rather obvious to many casual observers.

What I'm, in fact, further interested in is not just the reporting that ASEAN is working on a regional grid, and it serves as a precedent to a region like the ECOWAS one that has a West Africa Power Pool and the WAGP, but how, it is the sure sign of developments in the regional organisations to come.

You might find this a little whimsical, but consider this: the very fact that a mere google search of "West Africa Power Pool" pulls not articles from ECOWAS, but many other private sector organisations not directly related to ECOWAS underscores the very twist and pernicious development that we will begin to see over this apparent new trend of regionalising power and energy projects--especially in Africa.

With ECOBANK now in Rwanda, is ECOBANK Heading for the East African Community region?

I use "heading" specifically to provoke a debate, because let's face it: with the acceptance of Rwanda and Burundi into the East African Community, that is getting very ambitious on harmonising regional policies, it will not be long before ECOBANK, the indigenous West African regional banking group (with support from ECOWAS) will start eyeing that region.

After all, ECOBANK is not just in the ECOWAS region these days, but has comprehensively taken over the CEMAC one that comprises: Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Here is the quotation from ECOBANK's Arnold Ekpe:

Our strategy is to be a pan-African bank and to continue to grow. We plan to add five other countries in 2007 and therefore we will be operating in 21 countries. In the coming years, our growth will be in Central, Eastern and Southern Africa. Central Africa is becoming very important in the continent because of its huge natural resources, such as the oil and gas in Chad, Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville, Angola, DRC and Gabon. Our objective, as part of this expansion, is to be the leading bank in "Middle Africa", the area between North Africa and South Africa where we think we have a competitive advantage.
--from:http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-6159962/Ecobank-we-are-very-positive.html

Either way, it's important for one to get that information on ECOBANK and Rwanda, which you can read here. In French, one reads:

En acquérant 90% des parts de la Banque de commerce, de développement et d'indsutrie [sic] du Rwanda (BDCI), le groupe ECOBANK étend sa présence en Afrique de l'Est.

Selon un communiqué de presse rendu public jeudi à Ouagadougou, l'installation de ECOBANK au Rwanda s'inscrit en droite ligne de la stratégie d'ensemble visant à mener des opérations en Afrique de l'Est.

Le Directeur général du Groupe bancaire, Arnold Ekpe, a assuré que ECOBANK Transnational Incorporated (ETI), la maison-mère du Groupe ECOBANK, va recapitaliser et repositionner la BCDI selon son modèle commercial "qui a déjà fait ses preuves".

from: http://www.grioo.com/info11166.html

The long and the short is that in acquiring 90% stake of the Bank of Commerce, Development and Industry (BCDI) of Rwanda, the ECOBANK Group is spreading its presence in East Africa.

The article maintains that according to a press release, the establishment of ECOBANK in Rwanda reflects the strategy of ECOBANK for that region...

It must be prefaced that the article beforehand is about ECOBANK in the Central African Republic, which is also part of the CEMAC region.

ECOWAS -- The "Mother of all Regional Economic Communities in Africa"? (So Says EAC)

At least, this was what the visiting ambassador from the East African Community, Julius Onen, to the ECOWAS Commission on 24 July said. He is reputed to have said this when he was "exposed" to the ECOWAS Operational system.

This was no ordinary visit. It was one from no less than the five-member East African Community, which recently accepted Rwanda and Burundi in its fold. What is most significant about this visit is that it goes to underscore the very essence of the regional integration I had been adavocatinig ever since I started this blog, and way back in 2004, when I set up RegionsWatch.

It was conceived of, inter alia, as a way of sharing information about different kinds of regionalisms. To see that even without my instrumentality, this is happening(!) is a very positive sign. Maybe. it's possible that the long enough you preach your word out there on the internet, the more likely someone, somewhere is going to see and pass the word on;-) Someone might be patting their back for promoting this exchange, I'm sure!

Either way, it is all-so-exciting to see such important developments, and when these are expressed through information sharing and best practices, it becomes all the more interesting...and uncanny!

Best practices on regional integration are not new; the UN's Economic Commission for Africa created the Assessing Regional Integration in Africa(ARIA) as a way of doing just that.

In my estimation, however, it had served more to use ARIA as a way of monitoring and evaluating regional integration than using it to look at best practices in regional integration.

Either way, I'm grinning like a chesire-cat at the idea that suddenly, as if by magic, it is being discussed in no less than a place like ECOWAS that has moved progressively on communicating what it does to the ECOWAS citizens--and beyond--albeit in a painfully slow manner.

A quick look at the Communications department of the ECOWAS Commission reveals some interesting ideas about where ECOWAS would like to see itself. As to the operationalisation of these ideas, one lives in hope. It is good to see that some of the following have been slated:

Activities



· The West African Bulletin

· ECOWAS in Brief

· Publication on ECOMOG

· Brochure on the new ECOWAS Commission

Coming back specifically to the context of the press release from the newly-designed ECOWAS Commission website, it is important to disclose one very important piece of information about the future of EAC-ECOWAS relations, as well as the EAC itself:

Ambassador Onen disclosed the EAC’s plans to transform into a commission and
intensify its collaboration with African States and RECs as evidenced by the
bi-annual tripartite meetings with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern
Africa (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

I've blogged a number of times about the EAC, and quite a few times about ECOWAS.

The last comparison I made between EAC and ECOWAS yielded in this post. It was all about communication.

I'm glad to be blogging about something more concrete now. Let's keep fingers crossed for more of these positive developments!!