ECOWAS

• Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso have announced they are leaving the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
• The junta-led countries had already been suspended from the bloc, which has been urging them to return to democratic rule.
• Relations between the bloc and the three countries have been tense after military coups took place in Niger in July, Burkina Faso in 2022 and Mali in 2020.
• They were also founding members of the bloc-ECOWAS.
• The three countries, last year, formed a mutual defence pact called The Alliance of Sahel States.

ABOUT ECOWAS

• The Heads of State and Government of fifteen West African Countries established the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) when they signed the ECOWAS Treaty on the 28th of May 1975 in Lagos, Nigeria.
• The ECOWAS region spans an area of 5.2 million square kilometres.
• The Member States are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sénégal and Togo.
• Considered one of the pillars of the African Economic Community, ECOWAS was set up to foster the ideal of collective self-sufficiency for its member states. As a trading union, it is also meant to create a single, large trading bloc through economic cooperation.
• In 2007, ECOWAS Secretariat was transformed into a Commission.
• The Commission is headed by the President, assisted by a Vice President, thirteen Commissioners and the Auditor-General of ECOWAS Institutions, comprising experienced bureaucrats.
• The headquarters of ECOWAS is in Abuja, Nigeria.
• According to the Ecowas treaty, member states wishing to withdraw must give written notice a year in advance, and continue to abide by its provisions during that year.