ECOWAS lags behind peer blocs; Weizo harnesses private sector leadership
West Africa will miss all the potential and opportunities inherent in it by virtue of its location and capacity, if it does nothing to push its integration agenda beyond the free movement of goods, people and capital.
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Even though regional blocs such as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East Africa Community (EAC) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) were motivated by efforts of West Africans, those sub-regional bodies had since moved into new frontiers where they were really reaping the benefits.
“These are people who should be learning from the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS), but they are so far ahead of us,” a Nigerian travel business consultant and travel promoter, Mr Iketsi Uko admits and said it was time for the private sector in West Africa to lead the way, having demonstrated that it could collaborate to achieve quicker results.
ECOWAS’ latent potential
The West Africa region has a population of 300 million, the same as the United States of America and bigger than the European Union (EU). The sub-region has 40 airports dotted across but the region has not been able to harness the benefits of integration.
“The region is, therefore, well positioned to be one of the biggest economies in the world and immediately compete with China, which is already taking the world by storm, if we are able to work together,” Mr Uko, also a media consultant, journalist and author, said.
The sad thing, however, is that although ECOWAS is 40 years old and the first to start the free movement of people and goods, it has since not gone beyond that stage – and has been overtaken by regional blocs elsewhere in Africa.
This means the region has jettisoned imminent benefits including economies of scale for productivity, bigger markets and integration of abilities and skills which will enable players in industry and commerce to derive more value for their products and services.
Progress in East, Southern Africa
Other regional blocs such as the EAC and SADC have leapfrogged ECOWAS’ achievements and overtaken it.
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Citizens in East Africa currently need only a card to travel across - no more passports. There are plans to soon make their telephone services a seamless one network across the various countries and make roaming a thing of the past, just as the United States and other countries and regions with population similar to these regional blocs in Africa.
East Africa is also concluding protocols to harmonise airport taxes and remove inter-country taxes, and integrate (liberalise) their airspace to make travel by air within the region seamless and less expensive.
These moves are to help turn the East Africa region into one product, to be known as the Northern Corridor. The countries have already collaborated to build a highway to link all member countries, on which checkpoints have been virtually removed.
The publisher who travels frequently across West Africa and other continents believes West Africa would miss the potential and opportunities inherent in it by virtue of its location and capacity “if it does nothing.”
Private sector to lead
To get the private sector to start talking, Mr Uko, who organises the Abuja Bantaba and Akwaaba African Travel Market, the only international travel fair in West Africa, is putting together a one-day event, Weizo (Woezor), that will assemble important personalities from the public and private sectors in aviation, tourism and immigration to converge on Accra, on the theme: “Seamless Travels in West Africa.”
Woezor, which promises to be West Africa’s flagship event for the aviation and tourism sectors, will assemble some passionate business people and enigmatic speakers to address various burning issues affecting travel across the ECOWAS region, an important element for attaining a real economic and political integration for West Africa.
Organisers of the event, which is already being supported by big names such as La Palm Beach Hotel with support from the Ghana Tourist Authority (GTA), Abuja Bantaba and Ghana’s Tourism Ministry, believe the event will create maximum opportunity for people to grow business by networking and getting to know other players in the industry.
To that end, businesses will be coming from Nigeria, Kenya, The Gambia, South Africa and Rwanda.
Speakers and topics
Persons who have been successful in building cross-border businesses in West Africa have been carefully selected to address key issues and challenges hindering a robust regional integration in West Africa.
For instance, the Role of Private Sector in Regional Integration will be addressed by Dr Kwabena Adjei, founder and Chairman of Kasapreko Company Ltd; Intra Africa Air Connectivity, the Facts, Challenges and Benefits will be addressed by Adefunke Adeyemi, the Regional Head of the International Air Transport Association (AITA), Africa and Middle East, while Mr Frank Nneji of ABC Transport Ltd, will speak on Doing Business across West Africa.
A Gambian, Sheik Tejan, will address the issue of standardising hotels across West Africa.