While the phased approach of the Economic Community of West African States to implementing a long-delayed single currency will maintain momentum without compromising macroeconomic discipline, the bloc still lacks a robust mechanism to address asymmetric shocks. That is why fiscal integration must come first.
NEW YORK—The monetary integration of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has become an exercise in perpetual postponement: more than four decades after it first made moves to establish a common currency, the bloc has yet to achieve its goal. Plans to introduce the eco, as the currency will be called, in 2003 were repeatedly delayed, mainly because members failed to meet the macroeconomic convergence criteria simultaneously and consistently.
