The Eco Can Wait: Intra-African Trade First

ECOWAS's single currency project, named the eco, rests on strict convergence criteria. These are divided into two categories: four primary criteria and two secondary criteria.

Primary criteria:

● Budget deficit: no more than 3% of GDP (grants included, on a commitment basis).

● Inflation rate: no more than 5% per year, with an average targeted in the low single digits.

● Central bank financing of the deficit: no more than 10% of the previous year's tax revenue.

● Foreign exchange reserves: covering at least three months of imports.

Secondary criteria:

● Public debt: no more than 70% of GDP.

● Exchange rate variation: kept within a fixed, controlled margin.

Yet to date, no ECOWAS country fully meets all of these conditions.

Faced with this reality, heads of state have adopted a major shift in strategy: a phased rollout starting in 2027. Meeting on 19 July 2026 in Lungi, Sierra Leone, they confirmed that the eco will not launch simultaneously across all countries: implementation will begin with the states that meet the convergence criteria and are ready to participate, with support extended to the others to facilitate their later accession.

This confirmed timeline should not, however, distract from what matters most: efficient economic integration. 

The single currency should be the icing on the cake. Harmonizing customs and regulations, on the other hand, is the cake itself — and that cake is currently under strain. 

The announced withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger from ECOWAS, now grouped together in the Alliance of Sahel States, is reshaping the organization's institutional balance and further complicating the timeline and modalities for implementing the eco. Three WAEMU-zone countries pulling out of the regional framework is a direct challenge to a project whose credibility rests precisely on the integration of the entire zone.

The eco: a step forward, but not an end in itself

The eco, though modeled on the CFA franc, represents a potential step forward for the economies of participating West African states. But one point needs to be made precisely here: France currently guarantees the convertibility of the CFA franc, not that of the eco, which does not yet exist. A renaming of the CFA franc to "eco" was announced back in 2019 as part of the reform of WAEMU-France monetary cooperation, but it was never formalized — a further sign that the project's political dimension has often outpaced its economic and institutional reality.

That said, the real development of the ECOWAS zone depends above all on growth in intra-regional trade. 

Human mobility is already a reality today: with an Ivorian ID card, I can cross Ghana, Togo, and Benin to reach Nigeria. But if I'm transporting goods, I have to deal with the customs and regulations of each of those four countries. That's the West African — and more broadly African dilemma embodied by the Eco: that typically African reflex of putting the cart before the horse.

The real issue: intra-African trade

Intra-African trade currently accounts for only about 15 to 17% of the continent's total trade volume, according to the latest available data (compared with nearly 70% in Europe and around 60% in Asia). This gap isn't a problem — it's the continent's greatest untapped growth opportunity.

To grow trade between states, trade barriers must be lifted. If we managed to harmonize our accounting standards through OHADA, why not go further? If we can standardize how revenue from commercial activity is recorded, then we must also let goods circulate more freely.

Facilitating intra-regional investment and trade becomes effective once customs and regulations are harmonized across the zone. Only then will a single currency naturally take hold to smooth financial flows. 

The European Union, with the euro, followed exactly this path:

First, a customs union — much earlier. The EU's customs union (eliminating internal tariffs, establishing a common external tariff) was largely completed by 1968, decades before the euro. This was one of the founding goals of the 1957 Treaty of Rome (EEC).

Then, a single market and regulatory harmonization — in 1993. Deeper regulatory harmonization — free movement of goods, services, capital, and workers, along with the harmonization of product standards and technical regulations and the removal of non-tariff barriers — came with the Single European Act (1986) and the completion of the single market on 1 January 1993. This step preceded the euro by about six years, or nine if counting to the introduction of euro coins and banknotes in 2002.

Let's take inspiration from China's method of copying and adapting to one's own reality. 

Let's not proclaim a sovereignty we haven't yet fully built — doing so would cost us precious time in the face of the major challenges the world has in store.

The continued fixed parity with the euro and the maintained convertibility guarantee — with France remaining the zone's current monetary backstop — are reminders that this project remains, above all, a political one. But for ECOWAS member states, the economic stakes must come first, with a focus on what truly matters for the region's development.

The idea of a single currency for a zone bringing together Africa's leading oil and gold producers — Nigeria, Ghana — as well as Côte d'Ivoire, which accounts for roughly 40% of WAEMU's GDP according to the most recent data and posts one of Africa's highest growth rates, holds enormous potential.

The studies are clear: growing intra-African trade and investment is the key to the continent's development. The steps to get there are clear too: first regional integration, then harmonization of customs and regulatory barriers, and finally the smoothing of financial flows — of which a single currency is a logical consequence.

With the eco, ECOWAS is on the right track. But the roof that is the eco can only hold if it's built on solid walls — customs and regulatory harmonization — themselves grounded in effective regional integration, which is currently weakened by institutional tensions within the Community. It is when trade between states grows through customs and regulatory harmonization that convergence criteria will be met naturally, and positive growth will bear fruit. Meeting the eco's convergence criteria will then be the consequence of growing intra-regional trade and investment, reflecting successful West African economic and financial integration.

Marius C. Oula