For all of the ambition that has lengthy swirled round regional integration in West Africa, the truth has remained underwhelming. Commerce amongst ECOWAS member states nonetheless lags slightly below 10%. In an period the place continents compete not simply on GDP however on provide chains, self-reliance, and financial coherence, that determine is a quiet indictment. On the West Africa Financial Summit (WAES) 2025 in Abuja, we noticed a area not content material with aspiration alone. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, each host and the then ECOWAS Chairman, set the tone from the outset. “Intra-regional commerce stays underneath 10 per cent… a problem we will not afford to disregard. The worldwide economic system won’t look ahead to West Africa… neither ought to we.” This was not one other echo chamber of intentions. It was a summit the place supply was non-negotiable. Nigeria laid its playing cards on the desk by way of a $15 billion funding pipeline centered squarely on trade-enabling infrastructure from roads, energy, and industrial corridors, to digital frameworks.
The Lagos–Abidjan freeway challenge gained renewed momentum. A devoted deal room facilitated over $400 million in superior transactions. And the Pan-African Fee and Settlement System (PAPSS) is lastly shifting from pilot to real-world scale.
Maybe most crucially, the summit underscored that integration can’t occur with out identification. As Abisoye Coker-Odusote, CEO of Nigeria’s Nationwide Id Administration Fee, mentioned, “Our markets are bustling, our persons are buying and selling, however our techniques aren’t talking to one another.” Her name for cross-border digital identification recognition wasn’t simply technical coverage. It was a requirement to unlock the casual economic system that sustains thousands and thousands.
WTO Director-Normal Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala echoed the urgency, noting that the area might unlock a $500 billion commerce potential. However commerce isn’t just about quantity. It’s about velocity. How rapidly items, providers, funds, and folks can transfer with out friction. And that requires greater than declarations. It requires the deliberate dismantling of invisible partitions between neighbours. WAES 2025 did greater than establish the issue. It mapped the answer. Customs harmonisation. Coordinated funding in infrastructure. Youth-focused provide chain finance. A digital ecosystem that lastly connects the dots between markets.
President Tinubu’s closing problem captured the second succinctly. “Allow us to transfer from declarations to concrete offers… construct a West Africa that’s investable, aggressive, and resilient,” President Bola Tinubu mentioned. If the area rises to satisfy this problem, WAES 2025 won’t merely be remembered as a convention. It will likely be remembered because the turning level the place West Africa stopped buying and selling with hesitation and began buying and selling with objective.
.Ogra is Senior Particular Assistant to the President on Digital Media
