Regional Integration and Cooperation in West Africa : A Multidimensional perspective.

West Africa is one of the most fragmented and marginalized areas of the world. There emerges, from this reality, a considerable and ongoing interest in regional integration and cooperation as a solution to the region's problems. Traditionally, the focus has been on economic integration. Regional institutions have been created and trade preference schemes have been established. Today, the limits of this approach are increasingly recognized and a new form of regionalism is emerging. This new regionalism is at once more holistic in its pursuit of community building over the long term and more liberal in its economic orientation. This book examines the failure of regional integration and cooperation to date in West Africa and explores some of the options for the revitalization of such initiatives. These include: -The creation of truly supranational mechanisms. -Regional cooperation in areas ranging from infrastructure development to regional security. -Policy reforms undertaken on a coordinated or unilateral basis. -The adoption of a flexible, pragmatic, and multi-pronged strategy, based on opportunities for common advantage. Réal Lavergne is a Senior Program Specialist for Economic and Technology Policy, in the Dakar office of the International Development Research Centre. He holds a Ph.D. in economics and has published in the areas of trade and foreign policy.