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Background | Methodological Approach | Key Questions | Objectives
Activities & Results | Projects in 2009 | Contacts
 Background
The West African region is a geographically coherent area made up of the 15 member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) which are linked by geographic and human bonds with Mauritania, Chad and Cameroon. This space, in a phase of demo-economic evolution, now more than ever calls for greater attention to be given to the regional integration process which is now essential due to the populations’ extreme mobility. The production and trade settlement areas are expanding and spreading beyond national borders; cross-border dynamics are becoming integrative forces. Supporting these dynamics of change implies first taking them into account, documenting them, and discussing them (Atlas on Regional Integration). Promoting these dynamics also implies that actors on the ground be implicated in the definition and implementation of regional policies. The greater shared regional governance, involving and valorising non-institutional actors who are providing propositions and projects has been achieved. The issue now is to bring these ideas to fruition, in particular through the development of cross-border co-operation.
Methodological Approach
The “Local Development & the Process of Regional Integration” Unit’s approach is based on partnership and information-sharing. The Atlas on Regional Integration in West Africa is a joint initiative carried out with the ECOWAS Commission. Producing syntheses of regional issues enables ECOWAS to feed debate and, in some cases like that of migration, to develop a joint strategic thinking process with member states. The promotion of cross-border co-operation supported first by a network (WABI), initiated in 2003 by Enda-Diapol, the National Borders Directorate of Mali (DNF) and the SWAC, within which actors have been able to implement pilot projects on the ground, then by the institutional commitment of some States, the ECOWAS Commission and now the African Union. The work on migration is the result of a close partnership with the ECOWAS Commission’s Directorate of Free Movement.
Strategic Questions
At a time when there is some scepticism on the prospects of the regional integration process in West Africa, the SWAC endeavours, through its action, to illustrate that concrete dynamics of regional co-operation exist in the region.
- What are these dynamics at the macro-regional level? The Atlas on Regional Integration attempts to provide responses;
- Is it possible, via the local level, while capitalising on border actors’ initaitives, to build a concrete form of integration? This question was emphasised by the WABI network and is now taken up by the ECOWAS Cross-border Initiatives Programme (CIP) and by the AU Border Programme.
- With the migration issue back on the international agenda, what are its implications on free movement within the ECOWAS zone? The SWAC supports the ECOWAS Commission in its work on this issue.
Objectives
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Support West Africa in the implementation of an important West African regional programme fostering cross-border co-operation;
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Improve the understanding of West African regional stakes and in so doing initiate operational strategic thinking on regional policies;
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Support West Africa in the establishment of a system monitoring migraton and migration policies and in the development of a joint approach on migration.
Activities & Results
Within the framework of the 2005-2007 Work Plan, the Unit facilitated the implementaiton by West African partners of cross-border cooperation pilot operations on the ground The Unit has provided support to ECOWAS in its development of a regional cross-border cooperation strategy as well as to the African Union in the development of its Pan-African “Border” Programme.
Local Cross-Border Co-operation
Migration
Institutional Capacity-Building
Regional Analytical Tools
Projects in 2009
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Web Atlas on Regional Integration
West African Borders & Integration Initiative