The ECOWAS effort at achieving full integration of the sub-region through adoption of a single currency is under threat due to the steady decline of Nigeria’s currency, the naira.
ECOWAS has set year 2020 to achieve the adoption of a single currency for the sub-region. However, there are concerns that economic realities of member states. particularly Nigeria. may affect this effort.
This was a consensus view of the members of the Technical Meeting of the ECOWAS Macroeconomic Policy Committee on Multilateral Surveillance, during a two-day technical meeting, yesterday in Abuja.
Outgoing chair of the committee, Ommy Sar Ndaiye, noted that though the commission had made remarkable progress in its macroeconomic policies, but current economic challenges facing some member states were affecting the economy of the entire region.
“The depreciation in value of the naira and other economic factors in Nigeria are affecting ECOWAS. We all know that whatever happens in Nigeria weighs heavily on our economies. If there are challenges in Nigeria, it would reflect on the sub-region,” she said.
She urged the committee members to look inward and find better ways to strengthen economic ties within the sub-region.
The ECOWAS Commissioner for Macroeconomic Policy and Economic Research, Mamadou Traore, lamented that despite measures put in place by the commission, the West African economy was still vulnerable to external shocks.
He said the 2015 report on the macroeconomic convergence for the sub-region showed a slowdown in growth of the economy when compared to 2014.
Traore identified factors such as lack of raw materials, poor state of infrastructural development in member states and the depreciation in value of the naira as responsible.
While noting that the deadline for the adoption of single currency was fast approaching, the commissioner urged the committee to look into the progress made so far as well as identify challenges that might hinder its smooth operation.
He also urged member states to update their databases regularly on measures that drive economic growth and also furnish same to the commission for proper information.
