20.500.12592/bg84w5
Cross-border Co-operation Networks in West Africa
12 June 2017
Summary
This rediscovery of the peripheries of the nation state has fostered a proliferation of institutional initiatives that aim to cultivate co-operation between countries, regions and municipalities while ensuring the protection and promoting the interests and rights of the people living in border regions. [...] In the long term, the success of cross-border co-operation will be determined by the adoption of an integration model that is more closely bound to the socio-economic and political specificities of the region. [...] This rediscovery of the peripheries of the nation state has fostered the proliferation of institutional initiatives that aim to cultivate co-operation between countries, regions and municipalities while ensuring the protection and promoting the interests and rights of the people living in border regions. [...] The purpose of this paper, based on work by the OECD Sahel and West Africa Club on cross-border co-operation and policy networks in West Africa (SWAC/OECD, 2017), is to fill that gap, with an analysis of both the social structure and the geography of West African governance structures. [...] By analysing the structure of governance networks it is possible to identify the actors involved in cross-border co-operation, to map their formal and informal connections and to assess the impact of national borders on the exchange of information and power.
