Three leave Ecowas — How to make your country worse off

As I tweeted this morning, the military coup leaders who control Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have managed to score the silliest own goal since the UK voted for Brexit.

They take out 8% of Ecowas’ GDP and lose access to markets like Nigeria and Ghana, which together have a GDP of $467bn

These three countries were already among the poorest in Ecowas, and indeed the world – and leaving won’t help

To be fair, being members of Ecowas hadn’t made Mali, Burkina Faso or Niger rich.  Extremely low levels of adult literacy ensured they could not take full advantage of Ecowas and its trade opportunities. 

But so far I’ve seen nothing done by these new leaders to make their countries better off – despite the hopes of the crowds of their supporters when the coups happened  

As with Central Africa Republic, the countries most closely aligned to Putin’s Russia, are poor and destined to stay that way.

The writer is the head of Macro Strategy at FIM Partners UK Ltd.