Sierra Leone in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) : political and economic implications

This thesis seeks critically to examine Sierra Leone's participation in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). From a more general perspective, it assesses the role and contribution of regional integration and co-operation groupings in developing regions to national development. ECOWAS, an originally economic integration arrangement with common market objectives, has uniquely taken on security and defence responsibilities with the formation of the ECOWAS Cease-fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in 1990 to help resolve the Liberian civil war. Within the context of regional security and political co-operative, an ECOWAS Peace Plan brought about a resolution of the Liberian conflict and restoration of constitutional rule in Sierra Leone. This inevitably has had serious consequences for ECOWAS member states like Sierra Leone. In addition to the financial and political constraints of the regional security initiative, ECOWAS integration objectives such as trade liberalisation, harmonisation of economic policies, and the free movement of the factors of production, have debilitating economic, political and socio-cultural consequences for the country. The implementation of these regional policies constrain the political sovereignty, economic and fiscal autonomy of Sierra Leone.The purpose of this thesis is to attempt a cost-benefit analysis of Sierra Leone's ECOWAS membership, using integration theory as the conceptual framework for analysis. An examination of the traditional and recent theories of regionalism will assess the utility of these conceptual models in explaining, or providing an understanding of, the regional integration process in West Africa. The thesis argues that incremental pragmatism provides a more convincing explanation of Sierra Leone's ECOWAS integration and the integration process in West Africa. The evaluation of this multi-sectoral project will seek to assess the political, economic, and socio-cultural gains and losses of Sierra Leone's ECOWAS membership. The analysis of Sierra Leone's ECOWAS membership will be instructive in understanding the problems of distribution of the benefit of integration which had led to the disintegration of many integration schemes in Third World regions. Evaluation of Sierra Leone's ECOWAS integration, would invariably provide an insight into other member states politics of economic integration. It is hoped that this pioneer study will generate further research interest among ECOWAS countries in their search for a viable development strategy.