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00:00Well, the economic community of West African states has condemned recent attacks on
00:04in a border district with Niger Republic and Burkina Faso. Inke Mesud, our young partner
00:10at SBM Intelligence, joins me now for more on the relevance of ECOWAS and its capacity to
00:16curtail security concerns and any further breakaway following the formation of the
00:20Alliance of Sahel States. Inke Mesud, thanks a lot for joining us on the show today. I've
00:24said so many Happy New Year's this season, but thanks for coming through. We're looking at the
00:31relevance of ECOWAS at this moment right now. Sometime in January last year, we had the
00:37announcement, the plan from the Yalta-led states, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger Republic talking
00:43about exiting ECOWAS. This definitely sent shockwaves and then it forced the conversation
00:49around whether or not we would have a return grace period for that, the sort of negotiations
00:54and the posture, and whether or not this regional bloc still holds its relevance, especially with
01:00regards to security. It's one year down the line. How would you assess ECOWAS so far as it stands
01:06today? Well, I think ECOWAS is still in a state of suspended reality, because on the one hand,
01:13it has got to redefine its relevance and its mission for its remaining member states,
01:21especially the big ones, Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, especially within the
01:27security economic cooperation paradigm. On the other hand, it still has to find ways to engage
01:32with those breakaway Sahelian states. There are still important lines of
01:40cooperation around security, around economic cooperation, around the freedom of goods and
01:44services. It's quite interesting that those three states actually said they will still preserve
01:48visa-free access for citizens of ECOWAS states, and ECOWAS has invented an interest to
01:55reciprocate along those lines. So we may actually have a situation where this
02:01breakaway isn't a really hard fall off the cliff, but it's something a bit softer. If you think
02:07about this situation with Brexit and all of the other options that the UK had with respect to the
02:12European Union, we may see something along the cooperation lines that countries like Norway and
02:18Switzerland have with the EU with respect to the Sahelian states and ECOWAS. We've also seen
02:24fresh attacks now in Benin, for example, and that's also raising concerns. We also had
02:30Nigeria also deal with its own unique situations. That's on one hand, but now let's look at the
02:34bigger picture as we are going into further elections this year. We have Togo, Côte d'Ivoire,
02:40Gabon. In terms of the mindset here, whether or not we can successfully hold on to the principles
02:47of democracy and whether or not these countries are threatened with military takeovers, do you
02:54think we might have any reasons or concerns around these markets? For the Costa West African states
03:00at SBM, we don't see any sort of dramatic potential regime change or at least non-democratic
03:08governance change. Yes, very much so, and if anything, what we've seen across the regions
03:15with the elections in Senegal and in Ghana, it was almost as though those breakaways sort of
03:22galvanized some of the democratic energies. Yes, very much so, and one could argue that
03:30countries like Côte d'Ivoire and Togo are a bit more challenged from a governance standpoint,
03:34but I think it just underscores the need for democracies across the region to get the economic
03:38conversation right. Almost all of these countries right now are more than two decades into
03:45this current democratic election and peaceful transfer of power cycle, and I think for
03:51many West Africans right now, the conversation has kind of moved on from whether we can conduct
03:56elections, however flawed they are, to whether democracy can deliver on those dividends,
04:02economic growth, development, and ultimately increasing living standards across those
04:08regions, and that still remains to be seen. Inkemesid, we'll have to leave the conversation
04:11here for now. Thank you so much for your time and issue today. That was Inkemesid Evian, partner
04:15at SBM Intelligence.