Could a new highway draw military regimes back into the West African fold?

West African leaders are preparing for a crucial summit on Sunday in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, where they will focus on the departure of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger from the 15-member Ecowas bloc.

Few believe that the military rulers of the three dissident states can be persuaded to halt or reverse their decision.

While facing this blow to regional unity, West Africa is also set to start work on a 1,028km (689 mile) highway from the Ivory Coast capital Abidjan – through Ghana, Togo and Benin – to the Nigeria's largest city Lagos.

Construction is due to start in 2026 and pledges of $15.6bn (£12.3bn) have already been lodged from a range of funders and investors.

Just as Western Europe matched the Soviet-led communist bloc with a “Common Market” that became today's trade powerhouse, the European Union (EU), so ' Ecowas may find that its most effective response is a drive for prosperity and growth. to the wave of military and nationalist coups that has swept across the region since 2020.

The plan to build a modern transport corridor along the West African coast was first approved eight years ago – long before the coups that ended civilian rule in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

Preparatory studies, led by the African Development Bank, were commissioned.

But when these were presented last month, the time could hardly have come at a better time to revive the battered self-confidence of Ecowas (Economic Community of West African States).

Neither traditional diplomacy, nor sanctions, nor even the threat of military intervention in Niger, had pushed the juntas to organize elections and restore civilian government, as required by Ecowas' governing rules. .

The opposition regimes said they would leave the 15-member bloc altogether.

After that they have encouraged the efforts of the remaining members to persuade them to stay, although the Ecowas ambassador, the new young President of Senegal Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who shares their nationalist outlook, is still trying .

Until this crisis, Ecowas was the most comprehensive and politically integrated regional organization in Africa, with a distinguished history of crisis management and even the deployment of peacekeepers in troubled member states.

With the departure of Mali, Burkina and Niger, the bloc will lose 76 million of its 446 million people and more than half of its total land area, with the loss of large areas of the Sahara – a painful blow to its reputation and self-esteem. .

Young demonstrators hold a banner demanding a "Brexit" from the Economic Community of West African States at a protest in Bamako on January 14, 2022 — Supporters of the three states withdrawing from Ecowas have compared it to Brexit, Britain's withdrawal from the EU in 2020 (AFP)

The shock of the withdrawal of the three countries could give impetus to those pushing for stricter rules of governance and democracy.

At the same time, the ambitious coastal transport corridor project, designed to support economic development, will also serve a political purpose – demonstrating the ability of the remaining member states to act together and accelerate the growth of trade and investment attraction in the coastal cities of West Africa, which are already the richest. part of this large area.

And just as the wealth and dynamism of the EU was a powerful draw for former communist states, the rise of wealth across Ecowas may eventually embolden the now-separate northernmost states to come back to the block.

Construction on the proposed four-to-six highway is expected to create 70,000 jobs, and is expected to be completed by 2030.

And the plan is to acquire a large enough piece of land along the way to later include a new railway line, connecting the major port cities along the Gulf of Guinea. The existing railway routes extend inland, but there is no railway line along the coast.

The road connects many of the largest cities in West Africa – Abidjan, with 8.3 million people, Accra (4 million), Lomé (2 million), Cotonou (2.6 million) and Lagos, estimated at nearly 20 million or maybe even more.

Several of the cities are major gateways for the flow of trade into and out of the region.

Already the bureaucratic problems and the dangers of minor pollution that have made life so often complicated for drivers going from one country to another are beginning to decline.

At many border crossings, modern one-stop border posts, where officials from both countries work side-by-side to check passports and transit documents, have replaced the mixed-use booths where drivers and passengers queued at a series of counters while one set of border police and one customs officer after another worked diligently through the formalities.

And now the proposed railway and rail line promises to accelerate the flow of trade and travel between the coastal economies, promoting competitiveness and integration and transforming the attraction of the region for investors – just as the EU changed trade and development across the European continent.

And of course that process of economic and administrative integration had a huge political impact.

It was a powerful incentive for countries still outside the bloc to improve economic governance, strengthen democracy and tackle corruption, in the hope of qualifying for membership.

Ecowas may be able to imitate this precedent, and attract the dissident states to rejoin, especially if flagship projects such as the transport corridor provide real fulfillment to grow

Because not only do Mali, Niger and Burkina have major development and security challenges, but they are also landlocked, and heavily dependent on their coastal neighbors, through transport, trade and labor migration.

Large volumes of trade, both formal and informal, flow across borders.

Livestock from the three countries in the Sahel are exported on the farm to feed the residents of the cities of Dakar, Abidjan and Lagos.

Onions and potatoes grown in Niger's dry climate are prized by coastal home buyers, while Ivorian, Ghanaian and Nigerian manufactured goods are exported in the opposite direction.

Millions of Burkinabès and Malians are settled in Ivory Coast, the main place of labor for its cocoa plantations.

In addition, the coup leaders are not withdrawing from the West African CFA franc, the single currency of eight countries, supported by France, which stifles competitiveness but provides strong protection against inflation and instability money

But these deep ties between the Sahelian countries and the West African coast were not enough to prevent the military regimes in Mali, Burkina and Niger from announcing their withdrawal from Ecowas.

Hostility to the bloc, which they portray as bullying and arrogant, has paid political dividends, boosting their popularity at home. And Morocco is talking about opening another trade corridor to its Atlantic ports, which could expand the options.

But if the remaining Ecowas countries can accelerate their own quest for prosperity, cut back trade barriers and push ahead with forward-looking projects such as the coastal railway and railway, then gradually they may save political pressures and mistrust and pull the Sahel states back in. a reunified West African regional identity.

Paul Melly is a consultant with the Africa Program at Chatham House in London.