WAMA BULLETIN JUN 2009
The new road map that will lead to the adoption of a single currency in West Africa was adopted on 25 May 2009. That road map is the outcome of the implementation of the instruction given by the Assembly of ECOWAS Heads of State and Government during its summit held on June 15, 2007 in Abuja, Nigeria, to review the two track approach currently in force which seems to be running out of steam and to find a single track approach to speed up the establishment of the ECOWAS common currency.
It is in pursuance of this mandate that since September 2007 in Accra, Ghana, all regional institutions involved the ECOWAS Monetary Cooperation Programme (ECOWAS Commission, WAMA, WAMI, Central Banks and UEMOA Commission) have met on several occasions.
Thus, technical and convergence council meetings to assess work done to achieve the single currency were held respectively in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (8- 9 October 2007) and in Abuja, Nigeria (22
November 2008). Following this last meeting, it was recommended that a Working Group made up of the institutions stated above be established. This group was mandated to define and propose a concrete and realistic strategy, taking into account previous studies and using as background document the Strategic Plan developed by WAMA for the establishment of a single currency for ECOWAS. The strategy should lead to the establishment of this currency within a reasonable timeline.
With this mandate, the inter institutional working group, under the authority of the ECOWAS Commission, organized a retreat in Abuja from 16 to 18 February 2009 to draw up a road map for the creation of a single currency which was reviewed by the Technical Monitoring Committee before adoption by the Convergence Council.
The road map in its major outlines provides for the launching of the ECOWAS single currency in 2020, at the same time as the common Central Bank which will be responsible for the management of the currency. The launch of the Eco, the currency for WAMZ (West African Monetary Zone) is scheduled for an earlier date in 2015. The establishment and building of the ECOWAS Central Bank will be preceded by the definition of minimum standards that will ensure the harmonization of the various components of the road map.