Tag: ECOWAS

By Jane Ezirigwe

A common sight around West Africa is to see cattle grazing freely, even in major cities, on highways and in airports.

Every year, about 300 million head of livestock (mostly cattle) move across West Africa. Based on seasonal factors, they leave their usual grazing areas in search of water and pasture.

These practices, called pastoralism, or transhumance, go back millennia. They helped maximise land use in dry regions.

In a bid to support these practices, the Economic Community of West African State (ECOWAS) drew up regulations in 1998 and 2003. All ECOWAS member states were to apply the regulations.

As an expert in food and agricultural law, natural resources development and international trade, I examined the regulations to see what effects they might be having on investments in the livestock sector.

My findings show that livestock productivity has not improved in the region since the introduction of the new rules. Cattle productivity has fallen and milk production has improved very minimally. Clashes between farmers and herders have increased, along with insecurity. Elites take advantage of the regulations to exploit poor herders.

I conclude that the regulations may be discouraging meaningful large-scale investments such as ranching that could increase productivity, create jobs and ensure peace in the region.

Movement of livestock across West Africa

ECOWAS is the only regional economic community in Africa with specific regulations governing transhumance. The regional body is made up of 15 states.

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Its regulations aim to improve livestock productivity and food security, enhance the environment and reduce poverty.

The regulations allow free movement of livestock across the borders of member states under certain conditions. For example, herders must possess the ECOWAS International Transhumance Certificate, and a minimum of two herders must accompany the herds. The herders must be at least 18 years old.

Member states are obligated to apply the regulations. But they’re not doing so uniformly. Some coastal states don’t allow the herders into their countries. For instance, Benin Republic recently banned the entry of foreign herders into its territory. Togo and Côte d’Ivoire control the number of herders that enter their territories annually.

For its part, Nigeria is moving towards more sedentary cattle farming. Several states in Nigeria, such as Benue and Oyo, have also banned pastoralism.

These countries have restricted the movement of herds because of negative experiences such as farmer-herder clashes, cattle rustling and other forms of criminality.

Impact of ECOWAS transhumance regulations

ECOWAS regulation allows transhumance to exist in a form that is inimical to other business investment options – like ranching – for livestock production in the region.

Investors want profit, safe environments and certainty in rules. Pastoralism, on the other hand, encourages cheap labour and other practices that put large-scale investment in livestock at risk.

Bad business environment

Transhumance has been commercialised – and criminalised – in ways that produce a negative environment for the livestock business.

Movement of herds has contributed to conflicts between farmers and pastoralists, gender-based violence, insecurity and other forms of criminality.

Traffickers, smugglers, bandits and drug peddlers capitalise on livestock movement to commit crimes.

Proliferation of arms, terrorism, kidnapping and drug use have also increased in the guise of transhumance.

In Nigeria, for instance, it has been alleged that Boko Haram insurgents disguise themselves as pastoralists to convey improvised explosive devices to attack communities.

Limits modern methods

I also argue that the ECOWAS regulations, by allowing herds to move around the region, discourage investment in modern methods of livestock production. This is because the cost of production in transhumance is low. Land and fodder are free. Labour is cheap and exploitative. All this makes other business models, such as ranching, relatively unattractive by comparison. It affects their profits and investment risks.

Some countries which practise pastoralism, such as Mongolia and Tibet, restrict it to arid regions.

What should be done?

The practice of transhumance in West Africa should be gradually phased out. By this I mean a gradual – and then finally a total – ban on herder movements across borders.

This is because it is not an efficient use of land. About a third of West Africa’s land area is used for agriculture. Two-thirds of this serves as rangeland and pastures while one-third is used for crop production. Designated rangelands should be established in semi-arid areas of the region. Pastoralism should be restricted to these rangelands.

In my view conflict will be reduced if transhumance is restricted to arid and semi-arid regions. This in turn will make ranching more attractive, making room for large-scale investments that could create jobs and improve food security.

In the immediate future focus should be given to:

• The strict implementation of the International Transhumance Certificate. The certificate usually contains particulars on the composition of the herd, the vaccinations given, the itinerary of the herds, and the destination of the pastoralist. The responsibility of issuing the certificate rests on the country of origin. This should reduce incidences of criminal elements disguised as herders.

• Limiting the number of cattle that people can have in a moving herd. This will help avoid herds straying, and resultant conflicts.

• Introducing new rules requiring the use of ear-tags. This would help with traceability when cattle are stolen or when they destroy farmlands.

•Ezirigwe is Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Ottawa, Canada. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. https://theconversation.com/ecowas-rules-to-protect-pastoralists-discourage-investments-in-modern-livestock-farming-213493″

• By Alade Fawole

Now that France is being called out and facing serious backlash against its toxic neo-colonialism in West Africa is the best time for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) under Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to seize the initiative and begin the process of reinventing itself and resetting its priorities in the light of contemporary geopolitical changes across the globe. It needn’t be delayed any further. Reason: France has been its major albatross, and it is best to strike now that its power is waning. ECOWAS must endeavour to clinically detach itself from its stifling influence, an influence which has crippled the success of many of its noble objectives, one of them being establishing a single regional currency. Africa needs to be truly free from France, and there is hardly a more auspicious time than now to liberate itself from thraldom.

How should ECOWAS do this reset? Honestly, I have no magic bullet for it, but I believe that the sub-region parades some of the finest intellectuals, thinkers and diplomats who can come up with a framework or action plan. All ECOWAS needs is tap into this rich pool of expertise. The first step is to have a think tank do a comprehensive, holistic and dispassionate reassessment of the governance processes across its 15 member-states, creatively design suitable formulas or templates that are more suited to the histories, cultural peculiarities and contemporary circumstances of the region, as opposed to our current blind subscription to the Western prejudice that nothing but liberal democracy is best for us. (I have more to say on this in a future write-up). As is already clear to all, the so-called liberal democracy we have been goaded into adopting hasn’t performed admirably well for us. 

Secondly, having done the above, the organization would need to ensure that no member-states are allowed to be left outside its ranks, isolated, marginalized or dismissed from the collective body, for to do that would create cracks in the region that foreign interests would exploit to keep West Africa perpetually subservient and underdeveloped. To that extent, ECOWAS would have to carefully reassess the usefulness, functionality, efficacy and applicability of its sanctions mechanisms, so as to prevent the possibility of self-inflicted implosion. 

Let’s carefully examine the situation. Currently, four countries out of 15 members – Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger Republic – are on suspension and under different sanctions. Three of them, i.e., Niger, Mali and Burkina, are not only landlocked, with no direct access to the sea, but are also the largest territorial states in the sub-region, covering vast swathes of the notoriously inhospitable and largely ungoverned Sahel belt. Being landlocked is by itself a terrible handicap, as their international trade necessarily depends on the seaports and other transportation facilities, in fact on the benevolence of their coastal neighbours. For the sake of unity, collective development and sub-regional security, can we afford these states being totally isolated in a way that completely eviscerates their development? Not a good proposition. 

The reality, in any case, is also that the remaining member-countries, all of them littoral states with their uninhibited access to the vast Atlantic ocean, cannot simultaneously expect to develop and hope to remain safe, secure and stable, whilst the contiguous Sahelian states with the widespread and intractable jihadi terrorism and insurgency remain isolated. Mali has been in the throes of unrelenting Tuareg insurgency for decades, which even forced ECOWAS to intervene militarily in 2012. Both Burkina Faso and Niger also confront Tuareg insurgency while also coping with relentless murderous jihadi terrorism. A bird that perches on a stretched rope can only remain stable if the rope itself is stable, and vice versa. So it is a case of mutual dependence! All hands must be on deck for collective security and stability to be meaningful.

That being the reality, ECOWAS would now have to do a thorough reassessment. First, it must neither confuse nor equate itself with the European Union. Unlike the EU which it apes, ECOWAS is not a supranational organization, and as such cannot reasonably enforce the kind of stringent political, social and economic conditionalities, (such as strict adherence to liberal democratic principles and procedures in its domestic governance) that the EU subjects its prospective members to. The time is not yet ripe for that, as ECOWAS is for the time being more of a family grouping and the slightest cracks of disunity will open the regional doors to outside interference which are not in anyone’s interest. It will be impossible to expect Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Niger not to trade one foreign master for another (China and Russia in place of France) as an existential imperative if their own regional kith and kin continue to reject, ostracize and punish them in the name of a backslidden liberal democracy.

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Let it be clear, I am no fan of military dictatorship, but I’m also realistic enough to know that situations that we have no immediate power to resolve must be wisely and carefully attended to. And I’m not also advocating that these countries be left totally scot-free for their brazen assaults on constitutional rule and breach of ECOWAS protocols, but that ECOWAS should have considerations for the plight of their suffering peoples and also avoid totally ostracizing them from the community. Sanctions are increasingly becoming counter-productive and they hardly change governments these days. Instead, they force dictators to dig in and double down whilst the hapless populations bear the full brunt of imposed sanctions. ECOWAS must not be driven to become enemies of fellow ECOWAS citizens.

It does West Africa no credit if its leaders allow ECOWAS to unravel, for that would only satisfy its foreign traducers, help to divide and render the sub-region incapable of rising to defend collective interests and coordinate mutually beneficial development. It is the only one among the sub-regional groupings in Africa (AMU, ECCAS, EAEC, SADC, IGAD) to have advanced the cause and processes of continental integration the farthest. It must not be allowed to unravel, for its fall portends a catastrophic setback for the progress that has been recorded in continental integration since 1963. For example, it is obviously impossible to meaningfully implement the newly established African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) whilst member countries are ostracized by sanctions that include border closures, trade embargoes and boycotts.

Going forward, I suggest that ECOWAS should urgently constitute a high level panel, a think tank of sorts, to be made up of foremost knowledgeable scholars, eminent thinkers, former and serving diplomats and diplomatists, etc. to undertake a critical and clinical appraisal of the situations in the sub-region and design appropriate and actionable steps to take and the methods to adopt. I know I do not have his permission, but frankly speaking, the one name that comes to mind as I write this piece is Professor A. Bolaji Akinyemi, formidable political science and international relations scholar, consummate intellectual, thinker and former foreign affairs minister.  I apologize to the eminent professor if I overreach myself. There are other equally famous personages across the sub-region whose formidable intellect, expertise and experience can be usefully tapped for this purpose. This is my humble recommendation to the ECOWAS chairperson, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

• Prof Fawole is of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.