Policies to Integrate Labor: A requirement for the success of ECOWAS

L in International Economics Capital, particularly labor, are not as mobile as goods and services across national borders. This curious claim led to innovation away from facilities and methods by which the movement of labor across geographic boundaries could have been enhanced.

Somehow, scholars and merchants found it more sensible to move these goods and services across vast oceans It is a twin aspect of this thinking that labor and capital are more mobile within a country than across countries

Free Movement of G + S?

nation states and political demagogues erected national walls, built impregnable military, sea ports and fortresses. Established a complex façade of international visa and diplomatic protocols to prevent labor from moving across national frontiers.

Bretton Woods, and now much of the world focused on lowering barriers to the movement of goods, capital, services, and ideas. (Bravo, 2009)

Trade Theory H-O model will fall apart, i.e. there will be no discernible pattern of trade between two countries, if there were no differences in factor endowments. But these differences would have been breached, in the case of labor, if its international mobility has been built in!

The Curse of Sovereignty. “the disintegration of virtually all [integration] initiatives in developing countries may largely be blamed on rigid adherence to the state sovereignty doctrine...” (Kiplagat, K.P. in Bravo, 2005, p.16). Out of the 53 legal instruments adopted since the inception of ECOWAS in 1975, only 38 of them had been ratified. (African Press Organization, 2012)

Sovereignty: It is a lie France has destroyed the entire air force of Ivory Coast, its former West African colony, during clashes at the weekend French President Jacques Chirac personally ordered the destruction of the tiny Ivorian air force and the seizure of the airport. …France has been supported in its actions by the United States, the European Union and the UN Security Council. An emergency session of the UN Security Council gave French armed forces the go-ahead to use “all necessary means” in suppressing the population of Ivory Coast. (Talbot, 2004, column 1)

The Exception: The Battle of Adwa In March 1896 a well-disciplined and massive Ethiopian army did the unthinkable—it routed an invading Italian force and brought Italy’s war of conquest in Africa to an end (Jonas, 2011)

The Euro Lesson?

New Wine, Old Keg Of Multinationals, ICT and Globalization

Labor Mobility: No Time to Wait no direct institution or specialized agency geared towards the labor market or the harmonization of common labor practices in the community. Office of the Commissioner Trade, Customs, Industry & Free Movement; Ahmed Hamid is the current Commissioner. (The ECOWAS Commission, 2012).

The Integration Process

Cross Border Labor Quality g = Xβ + γQL + ε (1) R = Wδ + ŋg + ν (2) QL = Zα + πR + μ (3)